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HE TOOK A MATCH FROM HIS POCKET AND SCRATCHED IT. 

Page 45. 



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LITTLE 


5 







THE LITTLE 


CAVE-DWELLERS 


' ‘ BY , 

r 

ELLA FARMAN PRATT 

I 

Author of “ Happy Children,” ” The Play Lady.” 



NEW YORK: 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Copita Received 

SEP. 9 1901 

f , Copyright entry 

9* ^90^ 

CLASS ^XXo, No. 

/6 St Z 

COPY B. 


Copyright, 1901 
By T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 


TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, 
BOSTON, U S. A. 


CONTENTS 


I* PAGE 

A Young Indian 5 

II. 

\ 

Boys’ Talk 12 

III. 

The Library Bk 19 

IV. 

On Middle Sable 27 

V. 

The Front Door of the Cave 35 

VI. 

“’TisaCave!” 41 

VII. 

Crow’s Home 46 

VIII. 

Gran’ dad’s Window 52 

3 


4 


CONTENTS. 


IX. PAGE 

Planning Punishment for Crow 68 

X. 

The Ten-O’Clock Express 62 

XI. 

Life in the Cave 68 

XII. 

PiGWACKET Talk . 74 

XIII. 

Mysteries 78 

XIV. 

The Feast of Mondamin 82 

XV. 


Tom and Gran ’dad 


91 


The Little Cave-Dwellers 


I. 

A YOUNG INDIAN. 

If there was anything in which Duke Black 
took pride it was that he had Indian blood in 
his veins. It was a tradition in the family that 
far back on both sides of the house there was 
Indian blood. “ Good, early, colonial Indian 
blood,” Rebecca laughed one day ; “ we needn’t 
be ashamed of it, Marmaduke.” 

“ Yes, Becky I Paugus and Miantonimo were 
colonial Indians, weren’t they ! ” That was a 
new thought. Duke lighted up all over at 
the idea. 

“ Yes,” said Rebecca, “ historic Indians ; and 
besides,” she added, laughing, “ we are Cham- 
berlains 1 To be sure, we don’t know whether 
we’re descended from Rebecca, the Massa- 
chusetts witch, or from Richard, clerk of the 
Council when Cranfield was royal governor of 
the Province of New Hampshire, or from Pau- 
gus John ; but probably it’s from Paugus John.” 

5 


6 


THE LITTLE CAYE-DWELLEBS. 


Now Duke never liked to be told, as Kebecca 
well knew, that he was descended from the 
Chamberlain that killed Paugus, his favorite 
Indian. He retorted on his sister fiercely: 

“ Father never said John Chamberlain was 
our ancestor — he said he was a relation. It’s 
likely we’re descended from the witch ! Your 
name is Rebecca, and great-grandmother’s was 
Rebecca — Rebecca Chamberlain, too, hers was.” 

Marmaduke didn’t care so very much about 
the Chamberlains. Nor did he care about the 
Blacks. The Blacks were scholarly Puritan 
gentlemen who came over to Maryland from 
England in the days of the second King Charles 
to secure liberty to believe what they pleased. 
The idol of Marmaduke ’s dreams was Paugus, 
the great warrior of the Pigwackets. 

Marmaduke had heard the story of the fight 
at Lovewell’s Pond ever since he was old enough 
to hear stories. His father loved to relate it, 
chiefly, no doubt, because John Chamberlain 
was some sort of a lelative. That, too, was 
probably the reason why Rebecca liked the 
old tale of 1725. But little Duke always heard 
it with his heart beating high for Paugus. 

“ And,” Duke’s father used to say — and at 
this point the little boy on his knee would sit 
up very straight — “ after Captain Lovewell 
had been killed, and a good many of the white 
men, and a good many of the Indians, John 
Chamberlain and Paugus both came down to a 
clear place in the pond to wash their guns. 


A YOUNG INDIAN 


1 


They knew each other. Paugus, and some of 
the other Indians too, had often been in the 
white settlements. The Indians and whites 
had shouted and talked to each other by name 
during the fight. ‘ I shall kill you now, Pau- 
gus ! ’ called out Chamberlain, hurrpng to get 
his gun cleaned. ‘No, I kill you, John ! ’ said 
Paugus. Both worked as fast as they could. 
‘ You look out, Paugus ! ’ said Chamberlain. 
‘ No, you look out, John.’ And they both 
hurried, and Chamberlain got his gun loaded a 
little the first, and he shot Paugus dead. And 
Paugus had his loaded at almost the same 
minute, and he hurried, but his gun went up 
as he fell, and the bullet just missed Chamber- 
lain’s head — just missed it and that’s all. And 
after the battle the Indians buried Paugus near- 
by, but Chamberlain went back to Massachusetts 
and lived a great many years.” 

Here the little boy would let his head fall 
back upon his father’s breast. 

“ ‘ It was a bloody fight,’ ” he prompted. 

“ It was a bloody fight,” his father went on. 
“ The trees all around the pond were shot full 
of bullets. Men from Massachusetts came up 
and carved the names of the white men who 
fell, on some of the trees.” 

“ ‘ And fifty-nine years after the fight,’ ” 
prompted the little boy. 

“ And fifty-nine years after the fight,” went 
on Mr. Black, “ Doctor Jeremy Belknap, who 
was a great minister and historian, visited the 


8 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


spot, and saw the names on the aged trees, and 
the places where the bullets had been dug out 
by visitors. And this John Chamberlain was a 
relative of ours.” 

One day little Duke said he didn’t like John 
Chamberlain, and wished he hadn’t been a 
relation of theirs ! 

Perhaps it was his indignation against John 
Chamberlain that led Duke to claim relationship 
with Paugus ; perhaps it seemed to him the only 
way he could make it up to Paugus for a 
Chamberlain having killed him. 

“ How do you know he wasn’t a relation ? ” 
he argued. “ How do you know that some 
Chamberlain back in those days didn’t marry 
a girl of the Paugus race? There was some 
Indian or other among father’s folks away 
back, and why couldn’t it be one of Paugus’s 
folks ? ” 

Duke had an impetuous way, when he was a 
little boy, of arguing and proving and settling 
things to his own satisfaction. In the same 
manner as he established his descent from the 
old Pigwacket Chief, he settled his relation- 
ship, on his mother’s side, to Miantonimo, a 
Chief of the Narragansetts. He had frequent 
times of “ reasoning it out ” with his mother, 
much to the amusement of the family. 

“ You believe, don’t you, mother, that away 
back you have Indian blood ? ” he would say. 

“ It has always been said so,” his mother 
would answer. 


A YOUNG INDIAN. 


9 


“ And away back you always lived in Rhode 
Island, didn’t you, mother ? ” 

“ Yes,” his mother would say ; but one day 
she added, “ unless you go too far back — and 
then we lived in Wales.” 

“ Oh, did you ? I didn’t know that.” 

That night he got Rebecca to help him look 
up Wales. All proved quite satisfactory. 
Wales was a nice mountainous country; and 
the people were fine — great musicians and poets 
and fighters. King Arthur and his Knights 
had their Round Table in Wales, at Caerleon. 
“ Mother,” he said to Rebecca, “ may really 
have descended from one of the Knights of the 
Round Table, in the beginning, you know.” 

He told his mother about it, and that he 
would “ think it out,” as soon as he had time. 
“But that isn’t what we are talking about, 
mother,” he went on. “ It’s after your people 
had come over to Rhode Island and there was 
Indian blood in your family. Now, say ! The 
principal Indians in Rhode Island were the 
Narragansetts, weren’t they?” 

“ I believe so,” said his mother. 

“Well, then, it ‘stands to reason,’ as father 
says, that we may be Narragansetts. And 
Miantonimo was the finest of the Narragansetts, 
so noble and honorable and true — he was just 
like you, mother! I know it is Miantonimo’s 
blood you have in your veins, mother I ” 

Marmaduke was about nine years old when 
he settled the facts of his Indian ancestry. And 


10 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


certainly Miantonimo and Paugus were a very 
good selection for ancestors. 

“White men did sometimes marry squaw- 
girls in those days, didn’t they, father?” he 
asked one day. 

“ Probably,” Mr. Black answered. 

“And just look at yourself, father,” Duke 
went on. “ All you need, father, is a blanket and 
some feathers. You’re as dark — and awful 
tall and straight, with a great nose and high 
cheek-bones, and you walk very silent ! And 
such charcoaly eyes — you’re just as Indiany, 
father ! It’s plain you have Indian blood ! ” 

“ Well,” Mr. Black answered, “ we’ll say I am 
an Indian — I’m willing. Perhaps I could pass 
for one. But you, my son — how about you ? ” 

Then the family had to laugh. And Duke 
went red all over his face and neck, to the roots 
of his hair. It had been a sore subject to Duke 
— his looks ! In his very soul he longed to be 
dark, with a high nose and prominent cheek- 
bones. But, alas, he was a very blond young 
Indian ! He had a thin, delicate skin, and the 
sweetest complexion — white and rose ; blue 
eyes, too, and red hair — yes, the golden hair 
of his babyhood had turned red ; but, as it had 
changed so much, Duke had lately cherished a 
hope that it might change still more and become 
dark-brown at least. 

His complexion, too, Duke had concluded he 
could alter somewhat. He chose all kinds of 
work and sport that exposed him to the weather. 


A YOUNG INDIAN. 


11 


Wind and sun burned his fair skin, and when 
it healed it was thicker and darker. He helped 
his father in the hayfield on the hottest days, 
with his little shirt-sleeves rolled to his shoulders, 
simply to tan himself ; the year before he had 
become of a fairly good copper hue by August, 
though he bleached out a good deal during the 
winter. 

His eyes, to be sure, would remain blue. 
But there was one thing about his blue eyes that 
Duke himself didn’t know — if he had it would 
have pleased him mightily. When aroused to 
anger a most terrible look would come into them 

— yes, his eyes would be fairly terrible. It was 
not exactly blood, nor exactly fire, that filled 
them — but a hue, a blaze, of both. Everything 
shrank from before him. A curious thing, in 
connection with it, was the fact that his mother 
had only to say, “ Now, be a good child ! ” and 
Duke would at once become kind and obliging 
and reasonable. 

Whether this terrible aspect of his eyes at 
times was a sign of Indian blood, as Rebecca 
declared, cannot be settled; but his mother 
thought the feathers in his hats might be. 
Duke generally had a feather in his hat-band 

— an upright wild-fowl quill, crow or partridge, 
or a hawk’s. Even from the band of his Sunday 
hat the soft end of some feather or other peeped 
out. 


12 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


II. 

boys’ talk. 

Duke got up from the table in haste. They 
heard him going down cellar; and Rebecca 
and his mother glanced out of the window. 
“ Sammy I ” said Rebecca. 

Over the old ravine foot-bridge a boy of 
about Duke’s size was coming. It was Sammy 
Updyke. Sammy’s eyes and hair were coal- 
black, yet somehow he had a very much milder 
look than Duke. He and Duke were now about 
twelve years old. 

Duke came up two stairs at a step, and went 
to the door. “ Hello ! Be out in a minute ! ” 

He came back into the dining-room, took the 
thick slice of raisin-cake from his plate, looked 
at the cake-basket as though to take another, 
but thought better of it as he glanced at his 
father and mother, colored as he saw Rebecca’s 
eyes fastened on his pockets bulging with ap- 
ples, then rushed from the house after his usual 
manner when Sammy Updyke was waiting out- 
side, and was off down the green hill through 
the trees. 

Duke’s father sat for some minutes looking 


BOYS^ TALK. 


13 


out of the window after the two boys, munching 
the raisin-cake as they went along the road. 

Then he turned back to the table. Mrs. 
Black had straightened Duke’s chair, and rolled 
his napkin and restored it to its ring. “ Why 
don’t you insist,” he said, “ on Duke’s finishing 
his meals at the table? He eats anywhere and 
everywhere, just like a young Indian. He’s 
getting utterly uncivilized habits ! ” 

“Well, Robert,” Mrs. Black said, “I suppose 
it ought to be stopped. But he does take so 
much comfort, and I don’t know that there’s 
anything wicked in it. He says he enjoys eaf^ 
ing his cake and fruit twice as much outdoors. 
And where’s there any real harm in it ? — why not 
let him? I’m sure,” she went on, “I’ve heard 
you and John Updyke talk by the hour of the 
joys of camping-out, and how good the fish 
tasted rolled in leaves and roasted in hot ashes, 
and of various other uncivilized food ! Why 
not let the boy have the open-air zest with his 
crackers and dried beef — even though his 
pockets are a sight to behold ! ” she added to 
herself. 

She never could get Duke to turn his 
pockets and brush them himself ! 

Rebecca, from her place, could see the boys 
on the bridge at the corner, leaning on the rail 
and looking down into the stream. Just then 
Duke lifted his face up to the sky — a great 
weather prophet was Duke — and the sun fell 
full on him, and turned his red hair to a blaze. 


14 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


“Well, he’s an awful good boy, father,” she 
said, “ even if he does like to snatch his cake 
and run.” 

“ And he’s aboveboard about things he 
wants,” said his mother. “ He loves dainties 
like a young colt, but he doesn’t take his raisins 
and lump-sugar on the sly.” 

Rebecca laughed. “ No, he doesn’t have to, 
mother.” The thrifty Rebecca was vexed about 
the fruit-can of raisins which always stood on 
the shelf of the pantry closet where Duke could 
help himself. This fruit-can of raisins, and the 
fact that Duke could “ go to ” anything there 
was in the house, were great subjects of talk 
among the neighborhood boys, and various 
mothers had various opinions about it all. 

The boys all liked to go off on tramps with 
Duke Black; for just when you began to feel 
tired he always produced something out of his 
pocket “ to chew on,” a chip of dried beef, a 
piece of chocolate, a chunk of maple sugar, or 
a bay-leaf if nothing else. 

“ Yes, he’s a good boy,” said Duke’s father ; 
“ but I wish his habits were a little different.” 

Rebecca and her mother moved away from 
the table. The two boys had gone out of sight, 
around on the upper road, in among the thickets 
of young birch and poplar. 

Duke’s folks seldom asked where he was go- 
ing. “ Me’n Sammy’s going off for a walk,” 
he generally called into the house ; “ up the 
Sables, maybe.” 


BOYS^ TALK. 


15 


Duke and Sammy hardly ever started to go 
anywhere in particular. Duke loved a moun- 
tain, and they usually went toward the Sables. 
Sometimes they tramped for half a day; but 
home they always came before dark, and Duke’s 
first question was, “ You didn’t worry about us, 
did you, mother ? ” 

No, Mrs. Black wasn’t a worrying mother. 
With all his freedom and independence, she 
could trust Duke to be cautious and careful. 
He knew very well what it was that would 
trouble her — a failure to be home by dark ; 
and she could rely upon seeing him making his 
way up the green hill before daylight had wholly 
disappeared. It would have been different if 
Duke had loved to go off with a gun, or down 
to the river to fish. But Duke was not much 
of a sportsman. He was a pedestrian, a moun- 
taineer ; besides, frequently he and Sammy sat 
and talked by the hour under a tree, and didn’t 
get very far from home after all. 

This particular afternoon Duke and Sammy 
tramped off mountainward as usual. They 
thought they should go up Middle Sable. 

“ I s’pose Indians have been all over here, 
sometime,” said Sammy, as they went along and 
got into the woods. 

“ Of course,” said Duke. “ Indians were 
everywhere.” 

“ What kind do you s’pose were here ? ” said 
Sammy. “ What tribe ? ” Sammy knew about 
Baugus, and the fight at Love well’s Pond. 


16 THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


“Umph!” said Duke, fiercely, “that’s what 
no boy in this town can find out ! The library 
is full of Greeks and Romans, and the Aztecs 
and the Greenlanders, but not a book to be had 
about our own New Hampshire Indians ! I’ve 
been through the catalogue. Perhaps there’s 
something about just Indians, but not a single 
one about New Hampshire Indians — I can’t 
find a single book about any single particular 
New Hampshire chief — just as you can, you 
know, about Washington and about Lincoln. 
I want to read about old Passaconaway ! ” 
Sammy did not often go to the library for 
books, but he had a respect for Duke. “ Of 
course,” said he, “ if there’s anything you want 
to know you ought to be able to get books 
about it in the town library.” 

“Well,” said Duke, “when I grow up, there’ll 
be plenty of books about our home Indians ! ” 

“ I don’t know about that,” said Sammy, after 
a pause. “ Everybody’s dead now that knew 
about them. That Paugus fight of yours was 
more than a hundred and fifty years ago ! ” 

“ Things can always be found out, Sammy,” 
said Marmaduke, loftily. “ They can be dug up 
out of the ground, if there’s no other way. Just 
as things were at Pompeii. Say, Sammy, you 
and I’ll go up to Love well’s Pond some day — 
’tisn’t far, just over the border, in Maine, in 
Fryeburg.” Duke looked up the old battle, 
on the map, as often as once a week. 

“ Great things m'ust have happened sometime 


BOYS^ TALK. 


17 


or other on these hills, with Indians living here,” 
said Sammy. 

Duke shook his head. “ Indians were no 
climbers. They were walkers. They were 
always going from place to place. They’d 
choose flat land, easy walking. And they’d 
keep to rivers and streams, for they traveled 
in canoes all they could, and wanted to fish and 
shoot the deer that came out of the woods to 
drink and feed on the grass.” 

Sammy listened with admiration. Duke was 
a natural Indian — there was no doubt of it ! 

“ Of course,” Marmaduke added, “ they might 
have climbed hills some, so as to go into bear- 
dens for bears, and into caves.” 

“ S’pose there are any caves about here ? ” 
asked Sammy. 

Marmaduke looked up the steep Sables, thick 
with tall trees and matted with under-growth. 
‘‘Nobody can tell but what there are,” said he. 
“ I shouldn’t wonder.” 

“ I wish we could discover one !” said Sammy. 

“Wouldn’t it be fine I ” said Duke. He 
gazed again up the shaggy heights. “ They’d 
naturally be near the top where it is rocky.” 

“ So I should say,” said Sammy. “ Anyway, 
the trees aren’t so tall and thick towards the 
top. Say, why can’t we go over to Dilson vil- 
lage where the Sables begin, and go up there 
somewhere, and go along the summits, and make 
our way down in at places where it seems wild 
and rocky, and explore ? ” 


18 TRE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


Marmaduke was struck by Sammy’s ideas, 
though he couldn’t tell whether they were good 
ones or not. 

“If we could find where there had been an 
old water-course down in through the rocks and 
then dried up, ’twould be fine,” he said. 

“ W ould that be a cave ? ” asked Sammy. 

“ I don’t know whether ’twould or not,” said 
Duke. “ ’Twould be a sort of one. A bear 
could have had his den in such a place, and an 
Indian could have slept in it and had a fire. 
Anyway, we could call it a cave.” 

“ We’ve got all summer to hunt such places,” 
said Sammy, “ till school begins in September. 
How Crow would like to help hunt — and he’s 
so small he could slide down into holes and see 
what was there ! ” 

“It’s a shame Crow has to work and weed, 
and have his time all taken up,” said Duke. 

“We could board at Uncle Henry’s,” said 
Sammy ; “ you know he lives over at the village 

— for of course we couldn’t go home nights. 
Probably our folks would worry even then — 
they’d worry now, 1 s’pose, if they knew we 
were even talking of it ! ” 

But they kept on talking, and they talked so 
long that it was about dark before they reached 
home, and Duke’s mother was almost worrying 

— when suddenly she spied her boy coming up 
the green hill from the road. 


THE LIBRARY BOOK. 


19 


III. 

THE LIBRARY BOOK. 

But Duke and Sammy never made that trip 
over the summits of the Sables. Marmaduke 
was a long time in deciding whether the Dilson 
village plan would do to lay before his mother. 
He and Sammy had several stormy talks. 
Sammy never could bear to abandon an idea ; 
while Duke would go into a scheme with the 
greatest enthusiasm, then draw back to think it 
over — and drop it. In this case his delay 
ended in his never telling his mother; some- 
thing so perfectly delightful happened that 
there was no need. 

The very first talk Duke and Sammy had 
after the cave talk was the stormiest of all. 
They had sauntered up in the direction of the 
Sables, as usual, and sat down for a rest at 
Scott’s corner, under a spreading pine, as often 
they did — not that they were tired, but because 
the spot was a “ base of supplies.” 

Having a “base of supplies” was an idea 
which Marmaduke had got from books on Arctic 
travels, and Crow and Sammy had agreed with 
him that it would be a good plan to put various 


20 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS, 


lots of provisions in various places, so if you 
lost your way, or went too far before you 
turned homeward, or if you got tired, you could 
get something to eat near-by. This plan had 
been in operation two years. 

Duke threw himself down under the tree. 
Sammy went round the turn, and down un- 
der the bridge, quite out of sight. Presently 
he came up the bank with his hands full of 
russets. 

“Six left,” said he. “We’re all right for 
Saturday.” 

There was hardly a bridge within a circuit of 
three miles where some beam, or support, or 
cranny among the stones, had not been con- 
verted into a cupboard shelf. Whatever apple, 
pear or plum was at its prime was sure to be 
stored here in readiness for a famished boy, to- 
gether with other eatables that wouldn’t rot or 
mould. Small tin boxes containing chips of 
preserved ginger, hard candies, raisins, choco- 
lates in tin-foil, educator crackers, dried prunes 
and apricots, palatable pieces of codfish and 
smoked halibut, small portions of ground coffee 
put up as powders, and even cracked wheat and 
flaked oats folded in the same form, were 
among the life-preservatives. The plan was a 
success in every way. It not only could be re- 
lied upon to brace up a fellow if tired, but it 
made tramping a pleasure. No dog, cat, squir- 
rel, bird or boy was ever known to pilfer the 
stores. No boy, not in the secret, ever found 


THE LIBUAEY BOOK. 


21 


out that good things to eat were to be had 
under almost any bridge in town. 

While they lay in the shade eating their 
apples, Sammy said, “ What’d your mother 
say?” 

“ Haven’t told her yet,” said Duke. 

“ Haven’t ? Why ? I’ve told my mother ! ” 

“ Have ? What’d she say ? ” 

“ Said if Mrs. Black thought ’twas right, all 
right.” 

“ Well, I d’no as I shall tell her at all.” 

“Why?” asked Sammy, in astonishment. 

“ ’Cause I don’t think she’d be willing.” 

“ Why, you said she’d be sure to be will- 
ing,” exclaimed Sammy. 

“ Yes, I know. But I hadn’t thought about 
it then.” 

“ Well, you’re a great fellow ! ” said Sammy ; 
“make a plan and get anybody all interested 
— and then go to thinking about it, and give it 
up ! Just like you ! ” 

Duke couldn’t deny that. He had given up 
more fine schemes than Sammy dreamed of. 

“ Well,” he said, “ as I thought about it, I 
could see mother’s objections. I don’t think 
she’d want us to go over to your uncle’s and 
ask them to take us — a couple of boys — to 
board a week or more, and let us tramp about 
the mountains. They wouldn’t know when 
we’d be in at night. Mother’d say that your 
aunt’d worry herself to death. She’d say the 
woods were perfectly pathless and endless. And 


22 THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 

even if we blazed trees, like the early settlers, 
it wouldn’t be as if we were going somewhere 
in particular, and came back with the blazes 
for a guide ; for going down into places hunt- 
ing for caves we should be turning every which 
way, and get all mixed up among our hacked 
trees. And she’d say, if we were down the 
hill and got lost in the dense woods, we couldn’t 
light a torch and have it show so’s anybody 
could see it. And she’d say, if one of us fell 
and got hurt — that is, got hurt bad — the other 
of us mightn’t be able to find the way to the 
village for help, or ever find again the one left 
behind. Our mothers aren’t going to let us take 
guns along to fire signals — not much ! I tell 
you, Sammy, it’s a fool plan, and I don’t think 
I shall say anything about it ! ” 

“You’re a great kind of an Indian, aren’t 
you?” said Sammy. “You’d made a fine early 
settler I You’d been a fine white man to have 
lived in early times in New Hampshire, wouldn’t 
you ? ” 

“ Probably,” said Duke, his forehead red. “ I 
want to see a thing as ’tis,” he added. 

After Sammy had thought for a few minutes, 
he concluded Duke had seen the cave-hunt as 
it was, for now he, too, saw it that way. Then 
he asked himself why his mother hadn’t seen 
the facts, and refused her consent. It troubles 
a boy to have his mother fall short. Suddenly 
he pounced on the reason. “ It was a way 
she took to get rid of me — to tell me she had 


THE LIBBAEY BOOK. 


23 


no objections if Mrs. Black was willing Marma- 
duke should go. She knew no mother would 
let a boy go ! ” 

Sammy always liked to “ get even ” with 
Duke. And to “ get even ” was in his power 
now, especially should Duke be feeling that his 
mother was superior to his own in the matter 
of good judgment or knowledge, or anything. 
Their minister had said that Mrs. Updyke was 
the best informed woman in town. Of that, 
Sammy was very proud. 

“ See here,” said Sammy, sitting up and flip- 
ping his apple seed a ta daisy, “ you better study 
your catalogue before you say there aren’t any 
Indian books in the library ! ” 

“ I said books about New Hampshire In- 
dians ! ” 

“Well, about New Hampshire Indians then ! 
I got out a book last night that tells of the very 
tribe you want to know about — your dear Pig- 
wackets. You was mourning the other day 
because you could never know nothing more 
about ’em after the fight at Love well’s Pond ! I 
know just where they went.” 

Duke sat up. “ What’s the title ? ” he said, 
throwing away his apple. 

“ The title,” said Sammy, “ is ‘ Mr. Drake’s 
Indian History for Young Folks.’ It’s a little, 
worn-out old book — I guess everybody in town 
has had it but you ! ” 

“ How’d you come to know there was such a 
book ? ” asked Duke. 


24 THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLEES. 


“ Oh, mother told me. I said you wished 
you knew where the Pigwackets went to after 
the fight at Lovewell’s Pond ; and she said it 
was in that book, and told me to tell you it was 
in the library. I got it for you yesterday.” 

“Well, where have they gone to?” said 
Duke, unable to wait for the book, and speak- 
ing as though the ancient tribe had left but a 
week ago. 

“ Oh,” said Sammy, “ they went about a hun- 
dred and seventy-five years ago up into Canada. 
I was telling mother about your Indians ” — 

“ See here ! ” cried Duke, springing to his 
feet, his blood-and-fire look blazing up in his 
blue eyes, “ you didn’t go and tell your mother 
about my being part Indian ? ” 

Sammy didn’t answer for a minute. It was 
fine to see Duke Black mad ! Duke had 
doubled his fists, his face in a glow, before 
Sammy spoke. 

“ Of course not,” he said. Sammy knew he 
was the only boy in town whom Duke had told 
of his Indian blood. Proud as he was of it, it 
was his family secret. 

The boys started back home. They had 
thought of going up Middle Sable that after- 
noon, but it was too late. Besides, Duke 
wanted to see the Indian history. 

Duke got the old book and took it home. 
He carried it up to his chamber. And after 
the house was still and all asleep, on page 203 
— he made a memorandum of the title and page 


THE LIBBABY BOOK. 


25 


in his small book of personal concerns, a small, 
half-used grocer’s pass-book — he read that 
soon after the fight “they withdrew to the 
sources of the Connecticut River and finally 
settled in Canada.” He got his atlas and sur- 
veyed the “ sources of the Connecticut River.” 
He wished Mr. Drake had called the tribe “ Pig- 
wackets,” as he had always heard them called, 
instead of “ Pequawkets,” though this no doubt 
was their book name. 

Duke read much in the old book before he 
returned it. He got a good deal out of it, 
though he may not have got it wholly straight. 
“ Paugus was well known in the white settle- 
ments,” said Drake, just as his father had always 
said. He concluded that the Pigwackets made 
war against the settlers because they were Eng- 
lish, and that they had joined with a Maine 
tribe that was fighting for its lands secretly 
urged on by the French. Duke had never 
before realized that the hatred between the 
English and the French spoken of in his 
school history had had anything to do with the 
old family story of Paugus and Chamberlain. 
Probably Paugus had fired at Chamberlain with 
French powder and ball ! All the Indians 
believed that the French had paid them well 
for their land, but that the English had cheated 
them out of their country ! Duke’s eyes blazed 
up for Paugus and the Pigwackets ! What 
would he and his father do to strange people 
who should come to claim their farm and take 


26 


THE LITTLE CAVE-BWELLEBS. 


it? Would they fight? Oh, wouldn’t they? 
And if they depended for meat on the fish in 
it, would they let strange people dam up their 
own little branch of the Merrimack and build a 
great mill and fill the water with sawdust and 
poison the fish? Would they? 

Such were the indignant questions Duke ad- 
dressed to his mother. 

“ You must read a great deal of history, if 
you want the truth,” said Mrs. Black. “ Many 
say the English kings instructed those who came 
over here to pay the Indians for the land, and 
that they did, and that the Indians didn’t know 
the meaning of a deed, and that the children of 
these Indians grew up and denied the sales.” 

“Was it so?” demanded Duke, of his 
father.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Mr. Black. 

“ I’ll bet ’twasn’t ! ” said Duke. “ I wish 
the early settlers had never come ! The Indians 
would have been living here in peace ! ” 

Rebecca caught his arm as he went out. 
“ What a crazy, frantic little fellow you are ! ” 
she said. “ Don’t you know the English found 
the tribes here at war with one another ? ” 

Duke flung away. “ That’s just something 
you’ve read! After I’m educated I’ll look 
into these matters, Rebecca Chamberlain I ” 
When Duke was vexed at his sister he called 
her “ Rebecca Chamberlain I ” 


ON MIDDLE SABLE. 


27 


IV. 

ON MIDDLE SABLE. 

But Saturday they did go up the Sables. 
Crow was along — Crow Christopher. One 
might fancy from his name that the boy was 
dark ; but “ Crow ” was simply short and easy 
for “ Croydon,” and he was small, and pale, 
with mouse-colored hair, much more like some 
domestic little bird than a crow. 

Still there was nothing particularly tame and 
gentle about Crow Christopher. In their three- 
cornered disputes he was often the last to yield. 
But you never could tell which he would do — 
yield or hold put ! Sometimes when Duke and 
Sammy didn’t seem to think it worth while to 
contend, little Crow would have spilled the 
last drop of his blood before he would have 
yielded what seemed to him plain fact. At 
other times, when Duke and Sammy would sit 
under a tree and argue hotly half a day, he 
was content to lie on the ground and chew a 
blade of grass ; and if they appealed he was 
quite likely to say, “ Perhaps so ; perhaps so. 
Only I can’t see that it makes any difference 
either way.” 


28 THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


This means that some things were very 
important to little Crow and others were 
not. 

Crow was two years younger than Duke and 
Sammy, but they liked to have him along. His 
home and prospects were very different from 
theirs. He was thoroughly devoted to the 
two boys — little Crow had a perfectly startling 
capacity for being loyal, and for sticking to a 
promise. Yes, “ startling ” is the word that 
describes this trait in him, as you will see for 
yourselves. 

And Crow was another “ mother-boy ” — the 
same as Duke and Sammy, but with a differ- 
ence. Sammy was proud of his mother’s supe- 
riority; and Duke loved his because she was so 
dear and loving herself ; and little Crow was 
his mother’s counsellor — the man of the house 
in ways you would never expect a boy ten years 
old to be. He knew as much as any lawyer 
about that ill piece of business known as 
“mortgage and foreclosure,” and carried that 
clogging weight called “ semi-annual interest ” 
around in his bits of boots, so to speak. So the 
gay comradeship of Duke and Sammy was such 
a restful blessing to him as those two hap- 
hazard boys never dreamed. 

With their resources of pockel^money and 
their mothers’ pantries, Duke and Sammy never 
guessed how the proud and honorable desire to 
“ do his part ” weighed on little Crow ; nor the 
pleasure with which the little fellow handed 


ON MIDDLE SABLE. 


29 


out a couple of spring delicacies that Saturday 
as they went up the old road. 

“ Have some ? ” carelessly said Crow. 

“ Hello ! ” Duke helped himself lavishly from 
the double-handful of young wintergreen leaves. 
“ First I’ve seen this year — where d’you get 
’em?” 

“ Down in your meadow,” said Crow. “ The 
bank by the cowslips is just red with ’em.” 
From his other pocket he drew out a bundle 
of tender white sweet-flag sprouts, still folded 
close in their green outside sheaths. 

As a treat, nothing was left to be desired; 
and right at the mossy rise of the meadow, 
where they always struck in to go up Middle 
Sable, was the old ever-living spring where the 
boys loved to drink. The rusty dipper lay in 
the wet moss, bottom-side up, as they always 
left it. You crave water after wintergreens. 

Though they invariably went up from that 
point, whenever they climbed Middle Sable, 
there was still no visible path. They preferred 
it thus. Duke’s Indian blood rejoiced in a 
blind trail. 

There were a few large trees just beyond the 
spring, and then you stepped right into a dense 
growth of maple saplings. These you parted 
with your arms as you climbed. 

The growth was nearly as impenetrable and 
hot as a cane-brake. Years before the timber 
had been cut, and now all this lower section of 
the Sable range was thick with sprout-wood and 


30 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


seed-saplings. But to the boys — and so far as 
they knew no one else ever went up — the 
struggle, the push, the stride, the slipping foot- 
hold, the long-armed pull upward, made the joy 
of the half-mile climb. 

From this hot thicket they emerged into a 
vast open hemlock tangle, where foothold was 
very slippery and precarious. They never 
wandered much away from the good seat that 
lay a little distance up — a flat rock under a 
great spreading tree — the “cupboard-tree.” 
They generally felt they had had adventure 
sufficient by the time they reached it. 

There they usually sat for hours. They 
could look upward into the blue sky, and down 
upon a dense forest of green maple-top, and 
out upon villages crested with church spires, 
and far away upon vague blue mountain shapes. 
Each time they came up they hailed these far 
mountain forms with the joy of explorers and 
discoverers. 

“ Hurrah ! there’s the Uncanoonucsl ” Sammy 
would shout, as surprised as though never be- 
fore had he seen the twin peaks. 

“ Hello ! there you are ! ” would cry Duke to 
the nameless east ranges ; some days these were 
heavenly blue mountains, on others like lovely, 
vaporous cloud-banks. 

The one long, low-lying, grand mountain of 
their own region lay couching near in the north. 
It was said that from its bare summit, on a clear 
day, could be seen the crystal whiteness of Mt. 


ON MIDDLE SABLE. 


31 


Washington; and to the east, off Portsmouth, 
-a line of blueness, unlike all other blueness — 
the ocean I When Duke and Sammy should be 
fourteen, they had been promised the climb, 
with a great spyglass, and a bonfire at night, 
where they should sleep, they and little Crow, 
Indian fashion, in a circle, their toes to the 
coals I And like Indians they were to make 
the ascent, each boy with his blanket and 
provisions in a pack on his back. 

In fact, if all three had not had in them this 
streak of madness for a mountain horizon, they 
might long before have made a very delightful 
discovery on their own Middle Sable. 

They were sitting on the rock now, under the 
tree, their chins in their hands, resting. 

“ I wish there was a cave we could have to 
go into ! ” said Duke suddenly, as if they had just 
been talking of caves. 

“ Mother thinks very likely there are caves 
on High Sable,” said Sammy. “ But they’d be 
stopped up with stuff, if there were any. We 
never’d find one ! ” 

“ Nobody said they expected to find a cave 
with a nice hinged front door ! ” said Duke. “ I’d 
like the fun of digging the way in ! ” 

“We can’t tell what’s in among this hemlock 
stuff right here,” said Crow. “ You know how 
you went down out of sight, last summer, 
Duke.” 

Duke remembered. He had stepped plump 
down through an old hemlock tangle seven feet! 


32 


THE LITTLE CAY E-BW ELLERS. 


It might have been tough work ever getting 
back if he had been alone. 

He rose and stood on the rock, Sammy and 
Crow, too, and looked off to the right and to 
the left. Nobody could be sure as far as eye 
could reach of touching solid ground. 

“ I think,” said Crow, stretching up his neck 
and looking about brightly, much like a hopeful 
spring bird just arrived from the south, “we 
might make a search.” 

“You little grasshopper!” laughed Duke, 
looking down on him, “ you’d be in out of sight 
somewhere in less than five minutes.” 

“ I’ve been everywhere you and Sammy have 
been,” piped up Crow, “ and ’twas you got in 
out of sight, Duke ! ” Then Sammy laughed at 
Duke. 

“ But what I was going to say,” went on little 
Crow manfully, “ was that we might have some 
long, stout poles and prod around. We could 
stick the pole in before we stepped.” 

“ That’s so, my son,” said Duke. “ ’Twould 
be slow, but ’twould be sure. We’ll do it.” 

But they saw no trees which they could cut 
for walking poles with their jack-knives. Duke 
had at home a ferocious sheath-knife, a regular 
hunter’s knife. It was the pride of his heart, 
and he would have worn it in his belt every- 
where he went if it would not have distressed 
his mother. She had asked him to promise 
never to wear it up the Sables. He had told 
her one day how slippery the hemlock made the 


ON MIDDLE SABLE. 


33 


footing among the rocks ; ’twas then she said, 
“ Supposing you should slip and fall on that 
knife, Duke ! and supposing it should cut 
through the sheath and stab into you ! ” 

So the knife lay for the most part in his 
upper bureau drawer, its chief use to be taken 
out and flourished before the mirror in the 
murderous moves and lunges which Duke called 
“fencing” — it would have made any mother 
sick to see it ! Duke himself couldn’t answer 
when his mother asked what he wanted of such 
a knife. He really couldn’t think of anything 
he ever would use it for. 

“ I just wanted it. I just wanted to own 
such a knife,” he said; for Duke always an- 
swered his mother, he never evaded her ques- 
tions, but came out with the truth as he saw it. 

It was a little hard to have the knife, and 
never wear it. But his father had settled that 
at the outset. “ About the worst use you could 
put that knife to,” said he, “ would be to worry 
your mother with it.” 

“ Father,” laughed Rebecca, after Duke had 
gone up stairs, “don’t you know that Duke 
will never do any harm with that knife ? Don’t 
you know you have to kill all the chickens for 
mother to cook ? ” 

The register over the kitchen stove opened up 
into Duke’s room. It wasn’t closed, and Duke 
heard this. And Rebecca went on : “ He’s just 
as soft-hearted ! That knife is nothing but one 
of his dear, funny Indian traits ! ” 


34 THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 

Then the whole family laughed — his father 
and mother and Rebecca. Duke turned red 
and hot and “ mad.” Still he wasn’t ashamed 
of laying away the knife, to please his mother. 

“Well,” he said to the boys, “ let’s go down. 
We’ll cut some good hickory poles in your 
woods, Sammy, and Monday we’ll come up here 
armed.” 

Then they unbuttoned the little leather latch 
of the trap-door in the tree, and from the hole 
they had dug in the wood with their knives at 
various times when they had been sitting on 
the rock, they took out a small roll of sliced 
dried beef, and ate part of it, and put the rest 
back. It was a solemn rule never to eat all 
of the store in the cupboard-tree, or elsewhere, 
lest in some desperate need there would be no 
mouthful at hand to preserve life. 

Then downward they plunged to the spring in 
the moss. 


THE FRONT DOOR OF THE OAVE. 35 


V. 

THE FRONT DOOR OF THE CAVE. 

The boys were usually half an hour going 
up from the spring to the cupboard-tree. But 
Monday they were an hour. It was slow work 
getting through the saplings, carrying the long 
prodding poles. One was almost certain to 
hit the fellow in front of him, or the one behind, 
for the saplings would close in and knock the 
pole to one side or the other. All in one grand 
moment of ill-luck Sammy stumbled and Duke 
tripped over the back end of Sammy’s pole, 
while his own flew up behind and would have 
put out one of little Crow’s blue eyes had Crow 
been an inch taller; as it happened, it only 
punched a hole in his straw hat with one end, 
while with the other it gave Sammy a sharp dig 
in the back. 

But at last they came out, and got up through 
the hemlock scrub to the seat on the rock. 
There they threw their hats on the ground, 
wiped their wet faces, and proceeded at once to 
the business of the moment, which was to eat 
some figs, and stow away in their pockets some 
chocolate from the cupboard. 


36 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


Then Duke directed the start. All three 
were to go to the right, work along indepen- 
dent of each other, though keeping as near to- 
gether as practicable, and call loud and often. 
In case one got a fall, or “ stepped in out of 
sight,” he was to shout and rear up his pole as 
high as he could. In case one was killed, or 
disappeared entirely, the others were to leave 
off prodding for a cave and hunt until they 
found him ; in no case must they go home with- 
out him, for that would scare their mothers to 
death. While if they were not back by dark 
their fathers would come with lanterns to see 
what the matter was, and then stay and join in 
the search. Their families knew where they 
were, and that the path was a straight line from 
the spring in the moss to a big tree up in the 
hemlock tangle. 

Sammy declared there was so much of the 
directions they couldn’t be remembered. “ If I 
set myself up as the leader,” he said, “ I’d ” — 
“You’d what? ” cried Duke, glaring at him. 
“ Supposing you give the directions ! ” 

“ So I will,” said Sammy. “ Keep in hearing ! 
Keep in sight ! If you fall in, holler and keep 
your stick up ! If you are killed let it be known 
at once ! ” 

“ That’s enough, Sammy ! ” cried out Crow, 
interrupting. He had seen a wicked grin be- 
ginning to spread on Duke’s face. “ Hurrah ! 
now for the cave ! I’m off ! ” 

Off they all moved in the search for an un- 


THE FRONT DOOR OF THE CAVE. 37 


known cave, which, according to their expecta- 
tions, would only be found after many expedi- 
tions, and after many hard bumps and thumps, 
many thrilling trippings and slippings, many 
perilous descents into dark and dangerous 
places. 

What did happen was much more surprising. 
The boys found a cave in about an hour after 
little Crow hurrahed and started ahead, and a 
very satisfactory one, too. 

Crow thought he would start for some partic- 
ular point — he would be more likely to not get 
lost ! So he chose a prominent mass in the dis- 
tance that he had often noticed. Duke had 
said it probably was a scraggly old fallen hem- 
lock tree, overgrown with other thick hemlock 
stuff. Anyway, it was a distinct landmark, and 
he chose it and was off. 

Crow’s pole was about three times as tall as 
he. He went forward, setting it down in front 
each time before he stepped, and poking about 
with it to the right and the left. Sometimes 
he could take a dozen steps on good ground. 
Sometimes he stood upon a rock a long time, 
prodding for a safe place in a hole that seemed 
too deep to go down into. Once he stuck his 
pole in to swing himself across to another 
rock, but it whirled and brought him face down 
upon a horrid scrub ; and he scrambled up with 
a bloody nose and a bruised eye. 

The big boys saw nothing of this leaping fall 
which might have brought the mouse-haired 


38 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


little head crash upon a hidden rock ! But 
Crow saw both at some distance among the 
hemlock. He called out, cheering, and scram- 
bled ahead. He was luckier after that in get^ 
ting good footholds and finding flat rocks. The 
ground seemed to be covered with them under 
the old hemlock shag. Sometimes he called to 
Duke, sometimes to Sammy, “ Found a cave 
yet?” 

No. Duke had found one big rock with 
several clefts and fissures, none of them too deep 
for him to stand in with his head out in the 
daylight. 

“ Regular old hemlock quagmire ! ” shouted 
Sammy. 

“ Regular old Kipling jungle ! ” shouted Duke. 
“ What do you call it. Grasshopper ? ” 

“ Fun ! fun ! fun I ” shouted back Crow, giv- 
ing a careless hop that brought him, knee down, 
on a rock. 

Duke and Sammy didn’t see this accident 
either. Crow heard their voices in the distance 
— perhaps they had mishaps of their own to 
attend to ! But when he tried to rise he was 
afraid he had broken the knee-pan. For a bad 
minute the little fellow wondered if Duke and 
Sammy would ever be able to help him home, 
down through the saplings. But he straightened 
up and found he could stand, and step too. 

It was but a very little distance on that he 
noticed that he was walking on smooth stone 
under the hemlock litter. He was coming 


THE FRONT DOOR OF THE CAVE. 39 


quite near the mass of the big fallen tree, or wha1> 
ever it might be. It seemed to have towered up 
prodigiously while he was down on his knee. 

He stepped along, using his pole to find what 
it was he was walking upon — a long ledge, 
bare of earth. Suddenly he seemed to be in 
the midst of rocks, big ones, tumbled about at 
all angles. Step by step, with his trusty pole, 
he got footholds and went on, winding about 
and going higher, right into the face of the old 
hemlock mass — which might be only a great 
fallen tree, though Crow didn’t believe it was. 
Hello ! what was this ? 

Crow had passed in behind some tall upturned 
scraggly roots and stepped upon an oblong rock 
as much as thirty feet long, rising almost straight 
up four or five feet high, while over it, like a 
roof, but slanting up instead of downward, jut- 
ted out from the hill-side another mighty rock 
taking it well within its shadow. He stooped 
and looked down into a dark chasm. 

It was difficult for little Crow to keep a good 
grasp upon himself and not shout. 

He crouched on the long rock a few moments 
until his dizziness passed. Then he dropped 
one leg over outside, by which to steady him- 
self, and hold fast, and thrust his pole down 
into the opening. 

“ All right,” said Crow, triumphant, and drew 
out his pole, and braced himself in his seat still 
more firmly, by driving it down in the hemlock 
outside. 


40 THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS, 

Then he took his chocolate out and was eating 
it, when he heard the boys. “Crow? Crow? 
Crow ! Crow ! ” 

Crow filled his lungs and piped forth mightily : 

“ All right ! All right ! Co-o-ome here ! 
Come here I here ! here ! ” 

Through an opening in the hemlock scrag, he 
could see them poling themselves along, looking 
for him in all directions. 

He called again. “All right ! Here ! Here ! ” 
And then he yodeled I 

The boys answered and came on, though they 
couldn’t see him. Presently they were out of 
sight, but he could hear them. 

They were winding in among the big rocks. 

“ Crow ? Where are you ? ” 

“ Here ! ” , said Crow, laughing. “ Come in 
behind here ! ” 

Oh, it was a great moment for little Crow 
when Duke and Sammy came around in full 
view, and beheld him on his perch, and gazed 
with open mouths at the great rock-opening ! 

“How’s this for a front door?” cried he. 


^TIS A cave: 


41 


VI. 

“’tis a caye.” 

Duke and Sammy made their way along to 
the place where Crow sat, regarding them with 
a funny lift of his head. They dropped down 
by his side ; and they, too, threw a leg over the 
outer edge of the rock, though it was a very 
good seat, in a boy’s estimation, being about 
two feet wide. Then both ran their poles 
down the opening. 

“ It’s a door to something or other, Grass- 
hopper, that’s sure ! ” said Duke. 

Sammy looked over in, as far as the steep 
roof-slant permitted. “ By mighty ! ” he said, 
under breath, and choking on the last word, 
as he thought what if his mother were there 
to hear him ; this truly was the nearest and the 
only approach to forbidden forms of speech 
which Sammy Updyke had ever made. 

Duke got down and gazed in for some time. 
Soon Crow was there too. As far down as the 
boys could see, the big upper stone slanted 
along backward. The front stone, on which 
they lay, seemed to go straight downward. 

“ Sammy,” said Duke, “ you and Crow get 
back there and hold on to my legs, and let me 
put my head down in as far as I can.” 


42 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


“Yes,” said Sammy, obe3dng orders ; “you’ll 
see everything there is to see. Your hair’ll 
light it up fine.” 

Duke hung his bright head over in, and 
peered about. Then he got back on the rock. 
“ I think it’s straight up and down, and not 
very far below there seems to be some more 
stone sticking out. Let’s go down in.” 

Sammy didn’t seem to incline to do this. “ I 
don’t think we better,” he said. 

“ I thought you were anxious to find a cave ! ” 
cried Duke. “Get away — I’ll go in alone.” 
And he began to turn around preparatory to 
sliding, or dropping, or getting down in some 
form or other. 

Little Crow came shoving along. “ If Duke’s 
going,” he said, “ I’m going ! ” 

“ All right,” said Duke. “ You wait till I 
get down onto that stone. Then I’ll light a 
match and look in farther.” 

“ Oh, if you’re going, if you haven’t any 
common sense,” said Sammy, “ of course I shall 
go too. But how d’you know where this hole 
drops to ? How d’you know it isn’t a den — 
how d’you know there isn’t a bear down there, 
or a wolf, to welcome you ? ” 

“ I don^t know,” retorted Duke. “ But I’ll go 
down and see, and call up and tell you, Sammy ; 
you stay where it’s safe, Sammy, till I call.” 

Duke went down, breast to the front rock, 
half letting himself go, half clinging to the 
rough stone with arms and knees, until his feet 


“’TIS A CAVE.‘>^ 


43 


touched the stone below. The mouth of the 
entrance was really not very much over an arm’s- 
length above. The stone on which he stood was 
quite broad. By a good jump he could catch 
hold and draw himself up and out. 

Calling for his pole, cautiously he turned and 
looked about. It was not so very, very dark — 
some of the daylight above came in ; but he took 
a match from his pocket and scratched it — he 
and Sammy and Crow had a rule never to be 
without two or three matches. 

There was another step below — another spur 
of the ledge cropping out ; and this stone 
seemed to spread on out of sight. 

“ Come along down, Sammy ! ” he cried, his 
ill-humor gone. “ There’s a good floor — you 
won’t drop into any cistern I Come along down 
with your matches, both of you — only see that 
Crow don’t drop too sudden — for it’s about a 
straight fall — you come first ! ” 

By this time he had another match lighted, 
and was looking at the roof rock. It seemed 
to have changed its slant somewhat and strike 
off in more level fashion. 

The boys came dropping and scrambling to 
his side. 

“ Gracious, His a cave ! ” said Sammy. 

To Duke’s joy, Sammy had a full box of 
matches. 

“ Let’s all light one at the same time,” said 
Crow, “ and get a good look.” 

“ All right,” said Duke. “ It’s your cave, Crow.” 


44 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


So they struck three matches, and by stoop- 
ing could walk along from the lower step very 
well. The space seemed to be just a pas- 
sage at first. Then all at once it widened out, 
and squared itself into quite a good-sized place, 
where a dozen people could stand upright. 
The roof seemed level, and at the same time 
the floor sloped downward somewhat. 

They went forward fifteen or twenty feet, 
lighting matches as needed. Then the roof 
began to slant again, so that Sammy and Duke 
could no longer stand upright, and the sides to 
become irregular and jutting. 

Here they paused to take a look about. The 
place did not seem at all dangerous or mysteri- 
ous. There were no nooks for lurking. Old 
brown hemlock needles, twigs, and dry earthy 
stuff, had sifted in and covered the rocky floor. 
Otherwise, it appeared empty from the creation 
of the world, and never to have afforded shelter 
for any living creature. There was not to be seen 
so much as a lock of squirrel fur — not even the 
quill of a hedgehog ! But suddenly Crow cried 
out. He had been stepping along one side of the 
cave, and had just come upon a flat jut of rock, 
about a foot from the floor, and four feet or so 
above it, another projection, hood-like. He was 
lighting matches now, and examining the spot. 

“ Duke ! Duke ! ” he cried, “ there have been 
human beings here, and they have had a fire ! 
See, here's ashes ! ” 

Sammy and Duke rushed over. Yes, on the 


“’TI5 A CAVE. 


45 


natural hearth lay ashes, ancient ashes. They 
stood in silence a minute. Sammy looked 
almost scared. 

Then Duke spoke. “Well,” said he, “if 
this isn’t right jolly ! If a fire’ll burn and draw 
here for one person, it will for another ! W on’t 
we just have times here I Of course,” he went 
on, as they peered under the hood-like projection, 
“ we couldn’t see anything, anyway ; but there’s 
draughts up through the crevices into the 
outside world, or a fire wouldn’t have burned ! 
If I don’t roast apples and corn and potatoes 
on this hearth this fall, my name isn’t Marma- 
duke Paugus Chamberlain Black ! Come, let’s 
go — I want to tell mother ! ” 

With a whoop that would have done credit 
to the ancient Pigwackets, Duke led the way 
back to the entrance. Then, by various spring- 
ings and leapings and scramblings, and reaching 
down for Crow, they were finally outside once 
more, and picking and poling and prodding 
their way back to the cupboard-tree, ready for 
the descent ; the happiest three boys in town, 
in possession of the finest secret they ever had 
had, and full of anticipations of fun ! 

“ Crow,” said Duke once more, “ it’s your 
cave 1 It’s to be called Crow’s cave.” 

But it was many a long day before Crow 
saw the cave again I 


46 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


VII. 

crow’s home. 

For such a little fellow, it was remarkable 
how much money Crow Christopher had earned 
since his father died, and the great things he 
had done with it. At that time he took his 
place as the man of the house. Some boys 
at the age of nine have in them the making of 
a head of the family, and some haven’t. 

Crow’s father had come into town a couple 
of years before, and bought a green bit of 
land with three lovely elm-trees on it, and 
built a pretty little shingle-house with a simple 
veranda around it, and stained it brown-yellow 
and forest-green. There was left just enough 
land for a garden at the back, with green 
turf at the sides and the front, and the group 
of elm-trees. When all was done, it ^vas a 
dainty home, with its pretty cool colors and its 
shady veranda, and the bowery elms shutting 
off the excess of sunshine in summer-time. 
Such a day-laborer’s home had never before 
been seen in the town. But Mr. Christopher 
was a very able day-laborer, and said that in 
three years he could save up the three hundred 


CROWDS HOME. 


47 


dollars he had had to borrow, and anyway he 
had six years in which to pay it. But in one 
year he was dead, and little Crow was the 
head of the house, and the money, which had 
been saved to pay on the mortgage, had to be 
used in another way. 

But Mr. Glenn, the man who held the moii}- 
gage on their pretty home, could not take it 
away from them for six years if they paid him 
the interest on the three hundred dollars ; and 
never, if the full sum was paid by that time. 

This, little Crow’s mother explained to him 
very fully the day after the funeral. And little 
Crow loved his home so dearly that he was able 
to understand every particular of the business. 

“ I’m sorry now,” said Mrs. Christopher, 
“ that we didn’t rent a little place, instead of 
building. Then there would have been no 
debt.” 

Then it was, when she said the same thing 
again, mournfully, the next day, that little 
Crow showed how well he understood. 

“ Oh, I am not sorry,” said he ; “ I guess 
I’m not ! I couldn’t work to pay rent with a 
good courage, ’cause, mother, the money would 
be paid away and gone. And you could keep 
doing it and doing it, and never have anything 

— no, not if you had worked and paid it ten 
years. But I shall have a good courage to 
work to pay on that mortgage, because, every 
time we pay, the house will get to be more ours 

— and all the time we can be a-living in its 


48 THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 

beauty ! ” Crow’s blue eyes shone with love 
for his home. 

Crow’s mother wondered if her little boy had 
any idea of how he could earn money, and she 
asked him. 

“ Yes,” he said. “ There are things a boy 
can do as well as a man can do them though he 
can’t ask the same price an hour. I can get 
gardens to weed. I can get Mr. Black’s gar- 
den, for Duke hates to weed ; and Mr. Black 
always loses his temper when he has to take 
his hired man off the farm-work and put him 
on the weeding, and I know Mr. Black’ll have 
me — but I shall charge him ten cents an hour, 
and Mr. Black’ll be willing to pay it. I know 
Mrs. Black will anyway, when she sees the 
garden. Perhaps he’ll have me ride the horse 
to cultivate, for I am light. Mother, I think I 
can get a good deal of riding to cultivate, for 
I am so light ! And there’s Mr. Updyke’s cows 
— you know they change them about into so 
many pastures, and they have to be brought 
night and morning, and Sammy hasn’t got 
his dog trained yet to bring ’em, and Sammy 
has to go every time — I know Sammy would 
be glad to pay a boy to do it ; and Mr. Glenn, 
mother — don’t you think when Mr. Glenn 
finds we are going to work just as father 
did, to pay off the mortgage, that he’ll give 
me work? Tom’s going away to school in 
the fall, and there’ll be all the errands to the 
village. Old Mr. Glenn wants his paper every 


CROWDS HOME. 


49 


morning, and Tom won’t be there to go down 
on his wheel. And maybe Mrs. Glenn would 
like to have me in the house in haying and har- 
vesting, to save her steps — I should think she 
would — you know I’m handy in the house, 
mother ! ” 

“ I should say you were ! ” Mrs. Christopher 
pulled the smooth, mousey little head down on 
her arm and kissed it. She had been lost in 
wonder as Crow talked on, bringing forward 
one thing after another that a boy of nine could 
do. 

“ I can do it all, mother,” Crow went on, “ if 
you can get me a permit to be absent from 
school, except in the winter term, because you 
need me, as Mrs. Dillenbeck does for Delia. 
Then I should be pretty sure I could earn the 
interest and something on the principal.” 

Crow’s mother did not doubt that he could. 
None of the work was harder than he was 
able to do, and she thought, too, that he could 
get it. 

And I can keep up the regular annual pay- 
ments,” she said. “ I guess your mother’s good 
to save fifty dollars a year, my little boy — 
washing and sewing.” 

Crow groaned in his manly child-heart. He 
couldn’t endure that his little mother should 
go about into people’s kitchens to wash ! “I 
think 1 shall earn much more than the interest ! ” 
he said again. 

It turned out that Crow had calculated with 


50 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


very good judgment on the need for boy’s labor 
in the neighborhood, and that his work gave 
such satisfaction that he really did earn the 
interest money and something over. Everybody 
liked the plucky little fellow who never played 
when he could get a job to do ; though, for that 
matter, he often had a day to be olf with Mar- 
maduke Black and Sammy Updyke. 

Crow’s mother didn’t succeed so well. She 
fell short with her “ payments on the principal.” 
She couldn’t “ do washings.” At the end of a 
month she gave up the work. Nor could she 
“ do ironing.” She had to give that up too. 
She could make “ company cake,” she could do 
light sewing, and she could take fruit to can 
and pickles to make. But she could not save 
fifty dollars a year — at the end of the year 
she had paid but twenty-five dollars on the 
mortgage instead of fifty. 

The day before the cave discovery. Crow had 
had a bit of good news. Duke had told him 
that his father thought he could “ rake after ” 
in haying, and that meant “ dollar-a-day ” wages ! 

Crow had saved the news and the cave 
exploit to tell at breakfast. He enjoyed having 
something pleasant to recount to his mother at 
the breakfast table. And he had long ago 
learned that it was particularly agreeable to 
her to see that he stood high with Marmaduke 
Black and Sammy Updyke. She liked to see 
him with those boys. Nothing was more to 
her mind than to have Crow spending an 


CROW'S HOME. 


51 


evening at Mr. Black’s. He would be up in 
Duke’s room, and Duke would read aloud from 
his books the things he himself enjoyed — 
such as “ Paul Revere’s Ride,” and “ Horatius 
at the Bridge.” One night he had told Crow 
the story of Lovewell’s Pond and the fight 
between Chamberlain and Paugus, and tibat 
he was a “ relative ” to that Chamberlain — 
just what relation he didn’t know, only his 
great-great-grandmother was a Chamberlain, and 
Rebecca was “ named after her ” — and that he 
hated them all because one of them had killed 
the great and formidable Paugus, one of the 
ancient, original, lawful owners of the country. 

The Chamberlains simply came over from 
England ! ” he said. 

He didn’t tell Crow that it was believed that 
his family had Indian blood in their veins — 
Sammy Updyke was his only confidant on that 
point. But he brought the atlas, and pointed 
out the very spot where the famous Pigwacket 
fight took place, and told him that they were 
going on a carriage ride up through Maine, per- 
haps next summer, and that he intended to 
walk entirely around Love well’s Pond. 


52 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


VIII. 

gran’dad’s window. 

The day after the great discovery on Middle 
Sable, Crow went up to the Glenn farm in the 
afternoon before it was time to bring the cows 
from the pasture. He visited the vegetable 
garden, and then came along, to Mrs. Glenn’s 
flower garden near the house. It had been a 
fine growing time for weeds, warm and showery, 
and he had no notion of letting them get ahead 
of him. 

It was very still around the place. Crow 
had a feeling that nobody was at home, unless 
it was old Mr. Glenn — Gran’dad, as Tom 
called him. Crow knew Gran’dad’s habits 
pretty well ; he was usually asleep at this time 
of day. Crow was always rather glad to find him 
asleep. Gran’dad Glenn had the most piercing 
black eyes ever seen under heavy white eyebrows. 

The small single carriage was gone. Tom 
was nowhere about. Even W olf, the dog, was 
gone. The kitchen door and the sitting-room 
door and windows were closed ; only Gran’dad’s 
window was open. Gran’dad slept with it open 
night and day, summer or winter. 


GRAN'DAD^S WINDOW. 


53 


Crow came along the grass path by the house, 
under the open window ; and naturally his eye 
turned that way. As he saw the thing that 
was being done within he stopped dead still, 
as if he had frozen stiff. He didn’t move, 
nor call out. He could not have passed on to 
save his life. There lay Gran’dad, on his bed, 
asleep. There stood Tom, and with him Burt 
James, at Gran’dad’s open desk. Their backs 
were toward the window, but Crow knew who 
they were, and he saw Tom stealthily pull out a 
small drawer and take Gran’dad’s pocket-book, 
lay open the flaps of the bill-compartment, and 
remove a couple of bank-notes. 

As Tom placed the pocket-book back and 
noiselessly closed the drawer he turned and 
saw little Crow Christopher standing outside 
the window, looking in, his eyes and mouth 
wide open with astonishment ! 

For a second, with his face turning gray, he 
stood still before the little fellow’s look of utter 
wonderment and growing horror. 

“ Quick ! ” whispered Burt, and with the si- 
lence of a cat was out of the window, his grasp 
closing on Crow’s arm. In the same breath Tom 
was with him, and Crow was being hurried 
along the grove path to the old pine ravine. 

As for little Crow he was in a dead fright. 
Neither Tom nor Burt spoke to him. He 
glanced up first at Tom, then at Burt. They 
were of the “ big boys ” of the town. Tom was 
at least fifteen, and Burt was as old. 


54 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLEES. 


They plunged off with him among the pines, 
and there they let go his arms, at last. Tom 
stood and looked down at him, full in the face ; 
and Crow looked up, full in the face, too, with 
a gaze from which Tom had to turn. 

“ You’ll stand by me, Burt,” he said, after a 
minute, in a husky voice, speaking low, “no 
matter what I have to do ? ” 

“ Of course,” said the other. “ Aren’t we 
both in the same box ? ” 

Tom turned back, and cleared his throat. 
There is no denying that the words came hard. 
Tom had always liked the clear-minded, up- 
right, energetic little fellow. 

Crow was still looking up at him, in wonder. 
“Well, Crow,” said he, “you are in pretty 
business — spying into my grandfather’s room. 
What were you there for ? ” 

“I wasn’t spying, Tom,” said Crow in his 
shrill little voice. “ I don’t know why I stopped 
there, but I wasn’t spying.” 

“ No, Tom,” sneered Burt ; “ probably he 
didn’t stop to spy — he was going to play thief.” 

A look of relief spread over Tom’s face at 
Burt’s hint. 

“ Oh, that’s all plain enough,” he said. “ But 
I wanted to see what he would say. Lucky for 
you, you young cub, that we were there to pre- 
vent you ! I suppose you thought you could 
rob Gran’dad’s pocket-book and then, if the loss 
was discovered, lay it upon some one in the 
house — no doubt you’d say that you were pass- 


GRAN^DAD^S WINDOW. 


55 


ing the window and saw it done ! Oh,” added 
Tom, growing wickeder as he went on, “ I don’t 
know what we’ll do with you ! I don’t know 
what we ought to do with you — you little cub 
that everybody trusted ! ” 

“ You better wait until to-morrow and think 
it over,” said Burt. “ Of course something will 
need to be done.” 

Tom took this as a hint not to be rash, to 
take time to do a safe and sure thing. He was 
in a sweat of terror for his own safety from expo- 
sure, and it was hard to think out the matter 
clearly. They must make sure that the little boy 
would be on hand when they wanted him, 
should they let him go ; also that meantime he 
would keep silence. He musn’t breathe a word 
to Marmaduke Black and Sammy Updyke; he 
musn’t go to Mr. and Mrs. Black with it ; he 
mustn’t tell his mother either. He mustn’t go 
to anybody whatever. Tom was fast growing 
a villain, but he knew very well he wouldn’t 
be able to manage a questioning neighborhood 
of grown men and women I 

A thought popped into his head; and Tom 
during the last hour had become an adept in 
making immediate use of a wicked thought. 

“ And my father has been so good to them I ” 
he said to Burt. “ Mrs. Christopher hasn’t 
been able to keep up her payments on the 
mortgage on her place — but never a word has 
father said ; just let her pay at her convenience. 
And now look how this little cub — see here. 


56 


THB LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


Crow, unless you want your mother turned out 
of house and home you’ll keep mighty quiet 
about this business I One word to your mother 
or anybody, and out you’ll go, and your mother 
won’t have a roof over her head — remember, 
now ! Let me see ! I can’t say just how we 
may think best to finally settle this matter! 
Look here ! every morning at ten o’clock, after 
you get folks’s chores done, you come to this 
spot! If we’ve decided what we’ll do, we’ll 
meet you here. You appear every morning 
until we do meet you! Anyhow, you know 
the consequences to your mother unless you 
keep your mouth shut ! Your mother, no doubt, 
is a good woman — but you — little spy ! ” 

Tom turned on his heel and Burt followed 
him, and little Crow was left standing in the 
pine ravine. 

What passed in his manly little soul the next 
hour Croydon Christopher has never told to this 
day. We can only judge from results. What- 
ever resolves he made proved, in the end, 
to be wise ones. He probably had meant to go 
to Mr. and Mrs. Black, but, if so, this plan he 
abandoned. The boys hadn’t said that he stole 
the money, but he must have concluded that 
they would, should he speak of what he had 
seen. Who would not believe them., should the 
bank-notes be missed, and they declare that 
they had caught him at Gran’dad’s window? 
Who would believe him., should he tell what he 
had witnessed ? Even had he gone away from 


GBAN'DAD^S WINDOW. 


57 


the window undiscovered, he might not have 
confided the scene in Gran’dad’s room to his 
mother ; it would have worried her, and it was 
not a matter that they could set right, or ought 
to meddle with. Much less could he tell now. 
He had no doubt that if he should his mother’s 
home would be taken from her, as Tom had 
threatened. 

At five o’clock, the hour when he generally 
went up to bring the Glenn cows to the yard, 
Gran’dad sat on the veranda, reading his pa- 
per. Mr. and Mrs. Glenn were at home. Wolf 
came up, wagging his tail. Tom stood in the 
barn-door. “ Hello, Crow ! ” he called, as 
usual. 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


D» 


IX. 

PLANNING PUNISHMENT FOR CROW. 

At ten, next morning, poor little Crow was at 
the ravine. He had seen Tom when he went 
up to drive the cows to pasture ; but Tom had 
said nothing, and didn’t appear at the ravine. 
So after waiting an hour Crow went home, and 
worked all day in his mother’s garden. The 
next day it was the same, except that he weeded 
in Mr. Black’s garden. Crow’s bewilderment was 
such that at night he fell into a sort of stupid, 
heavy sleep, and slept all night ; and this saved 
the little fellow from breaking down under his 
troubles. He had seen Duke and Sammy. 
They wanted to go up to the cave, but Crow 
said he would have to work hard all the next fort- 
night. He worked late and started very early, 
and his mother saw little of him. 

The next Monday, as he stood waiting. Crow 
saw the two boys coming down the ravine. He 
began to shiver — not with fright, but because 
the suspense was going to be ended. Tom was 
whistling; as they came up, he spoke to Crow. 
“ See here, you ! have you opened your lips to 
your mother ? ” 


PLANNING PUNISHMENT FOR CROW. 59 


Crow shook his head. 

“ Well, you better not. My father and I are 
coming down to your house this afternoon; 
and whatever he proposes, you want to agree 
to, and act glad about it, too, if you wish to 
keep a roof over your mother’s head ! ” 

And then, hands in pocket, whistling, the 
boys went along. “ You did it all right ! you’ve 
got him ! ” said Bert. 

“ I hope so ! ” said Tom. “ If Gran’dad ever 
should hear of it, there’d be no holding him in 
— good-by for Tom Glenn to railroad shares, 
mining stocks, and bank-books ! It’s got to be 
done ! And ’twon’t be such a bad thing for 
Crow — anyway, we’ve got to put it though. 
If Crow should blurt out the truth, father 
wouldn’t believe him — do you think he would ?” 

“No, indeed.” 

With Bert’s ready help whenever he came 
to a weak spot, Tom had had a talk with his 
father that settled little Crow’s fate in more 
ways than one — and Tom’s, too, for that matter. 
The talk had been held at the barn, on the 
evening after “ Crow’s burglary,” as Tom and 
Bert jocosely had begun to speak of the scene 
at Gran’dad’s window. 

Tom had dreaded the talk, for Tom never had 
been a liar. But the ease with which he laid 
the matter before his father had been a surprise, 
even to himself. The three sitting on the work- 
bench together, it had been confided to Mr. 
Glenn that little Crow Christopher had taken 


60 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


advantage of everybody’s absence from the house, 
and Gran’dad’s window being open, to enter 
Gran’dad’s room when he was asleep, and had 
gone to Gran’dad’s desk, and was in the ver}^ act 
of taking some money, when they caught him, 
and, beckoning him with threatening gestures 
noiselessly out of the window, led him off, and 
gave him a good talking-to, and bound him to 
report himself to them every day. 

“We thought, you know, Mr. Glenn,” Bert 
had explained, “ that the first thing was not to 
disturb old Mr. Glenn. We knew that would 
be the end of his feeling safe alone in the house, 
or ever daring to leave his window up.” 

“ And you know, father,” Tom had added, 
“that Gran’dad thinks he can’t sleep, either 
summer or winter, with his window closed.” 

Mr. Glenn had listened to the tale with utter 
astonishment — little Crow Christopher — that 
industrious little blue-eyed boy ! Yet he could 
not but appreciate the remarkable judgment and 
thoughtfulness displayed by the boys. They 
had saved no end of trouble for his aged father 
and the whole household. 

“ That was right, that was well done,” he 
said. “ What did you say you did with Crow ? ” 

“ Well, sir,” Bert had said, as he saw that Mr. 
Glenn’s complete confidence in their account had 
rather staggered Tom. “We took him off, and 
gave him a good frightening so that he wouldn’t 
dare make a move until you had decided what 
best be said or done.” 


PLANNING PUNISHMENT FOR CROW. 61 


“ For you see,” Tom had said, “ there’s his 
mother. Mrs. Christopher’s a nice woman, and 
’twould be pretty hard for her to find Crow had 
been caught burglaring. We thought we’d best 
talk with you, father.” 

“ He must be a sly little villain,” then Bert 
had said, helping Tom along, seeing how often 
he paused ; “ nobody ever would suspect him, 
and so he may do the same sort of thing again, at 
any of our houses where he is trusted and al- 
lowed to go all over the place. He ought to 
be scared out of thinking he can do such things 
by a pretty good lesson — I don’t know but 
he ought to be sent out of town.” 

Here Tom had taken up the plan. “We don’t, 
any of us, want to hurt the little fellow, you 
know, father; and if he’s well punished he’ll 
prob’ly reform ; and we don’t want to make his 
mother trouble. If he’s shut up he can’t earn 
money for her. I’ll tell you what I’ve thought 
of, father. You might do this way.” 

And here Tom had laid a plan before his father, 
to which Mr. Glenn presently agreed, for it 
seemed to promise very well indeed. 

And then he had gone in and written a let- 
ter for Tom to take down to the village for the 
early mail the next morning. 

The answer to this letter had arrived the 
morning on which the boys finally kept their ap- 
pointment with poor little Crow. 


62 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


X 

THE ten-o’clock EXPRESS. 

Monday afternoon Mrs. Christopher received 
a call from Mr. Glenn and his son Tom. Crow 
was at home, weeding, and came in. Tom 
greeted him jovially, “ Pretty hot day for weed- 
ing! Glad you took father’s garden off my 
hands this summer I ” 

Crow stared, with a sickly sort of smile. His 
face hadn’t any kind of expression. He sat 
down in a corner chair where the vines outside 
made the light dim, and Tom took a chair near- 

by- 

Then Mr. Glenn, who could not forbear a 
searching glance at little Crow, with a good 
deal of severity in it, laid his business before 
Crow’s mother. 

“We all know, Mrs. Christopher,” he said, 
“ that you are having a rather hard time of it, 
paying for your pretty home here, and are going 
to have for the next few years. It’s always a 
hard fight for a woman. You know that I have 
been patient, and shall be, about the payments 
not being kept up to specifications, as long as 
there is any reasonable prospect that they will 


THE TEN-O'CLOCK EXPRESS. 


63 


be met at all. But I want to assist you more 
than that; and so does Tom here, and Tom’s 
mother. So we have been carrying out a plan 
by which Crow can help you right along, double 
what he has done, and with all his expenses paid 
and clothing found.” 

By this time Mrs. Christopher had fastened 
her eyes on her rich neighbor’s face with the 
most intense wonderment. Crow’s eyes, too, 
wore an intense expression, not of wonderment, 
but of fear, as he sat with both hands grasping 
the seat of his chair. 

“ My wife’s brother, Tom’s uncle,” went on 
Mr. Glenn, “has a big clothing-store in Cleveland, 
and employs a good many boys of one age and 
another, and offers to give Crow a good place 
at four dollars a week, and take him into his 
family — as one of Tom’s friends, you know. 
This will help you pay off interest and principal 
in a short time, you know ; and it will start Crow 
into a good business — you will not need to feel 
anxious about him in any way. We are very 
glad we can do this for one of our neighbors, 
Mrs. Christopher.” 

Tom looked at Crow keenly, and at Crow’s 
mother. 

“ But,” went on Mr. Glenn, “ Crow is wanted 
there on Wednesday morning. My brother 
wishes to see him before he leaves on a long 
business journey.” 

Mrs. Christopher gathered herself together. 
The possibilities of the position were wonderful. 


64 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


situated as they were. She turned toward her 
boy. 

“ What do you say, Crow ? ” 

The little fellow got up. He turned as he 
rose and bent upon Tom a look of the most 
dreadful suffering and reproach. 

Tom lost his self-reliance for a second, and 
rose too — he stepped across and looked out at 
a carriage passing. 

“ I’ll go, mother,” said the little fellow. “ It’s 
a good chance for us.” And he had the self- 
control to stand up like a little man and say, 
“ Thank you, Mr. Glenn ! ” He looked at Mr. 
Glenn with a pair of steady, searching blue 
eyes. Tom’s father almost quailed before them, 
for it did not seem possible that the manly child 
could have committed the deed which the boys 
had witnessed ; and involuntarily he held out 
his hand to him, and Crow gave him his, with 
a sudden feeling that Tom’s father didn’t know 
what he was doing to him ! It was a strange 
minute anyway for little Crow, for he felt bewil- 
dered by the form of good fortune which Tom’s 
seeming cruelty was taking. 

Tom beckoned him out into the garden. 
“ All right so far. Crow,” he said huskily. “It 
won’t be so bad ! you’ll earn a heap of money, 
and if you keep mum we’ll look out good and 
strong for your mother — father and I. That’s 
so — we will I ” 

Tom appeared wretched. Crow saw it, and 
felt the touch of hope. 


THE TEN^O^ CLOCK EXPRESS. 


65 


“ Tom,” the little fellow said eagerly, I’ll 
be mum anyway ! Don’t make me leave 
mother I I’ll be mum always I ” 

“No, sir,” said Tom, an ugly look in his 
eyes of something that would go to any length. 
“ You look out ! I love my father — if father 
should know, it would kill him. You love 
your mother — if she should believe what I and 
my father will tell her if you make us, it would 
kill her the same. You want to look out ! ” 

So Tom’s father knew, Tom’s father believed 
he was a thief. They could make his mother 
believe it, they could make the town believe it. 

Tom saw the wan whiteness rise on the 
child’s face — the loving, manly, despairing 
face. For a moment it almost crushed Tom, 
but it did not make him relent. 

“ You go straight along and the secret’s 
kept ! ” he said. “ You go along the way I 
want you to, and I’ll make father do you all 
the good I can think of ! I’ll make it up to 
you ! ” 

There were tears of suffering in Tom’s eyes. 
But — to “ make up ” to honorable little Crow 
the shame of being thought a thief by a good 
man like Mr. Glenn ? Crow recoiled from great, 
blundering, wicked, unrelenting Tom, turned 
on his little heel, and went back into the house. 

“ I’ve told kind Mr. Glenn that I’ll have you 
ready to-night for the ten-o’clock express,” said 
Crow’s mother. “ He’ll take you down and put 
you in the conductor’s care.” 


66 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


“ Mr. Glenn,” said Crow, speaking up in his 
piping young voice, “ you’ll come so that mother 
can ride down too ? ” 

Do you not understand? The little fellow 
felt that unless his mother were along, so that 
he could look at her to the last moment and 
remember what might befall her should he speak 
out, he might break down and declare the 
whole to Mr. Glenn ! Just as the moon rose 
he was riding down with his mother to the 
station. He had not been over to bid Duke 
and Sammy farewell. He had not seen Mrs. Up- 
dyke. He had not seen Mrs. Black. The cave 
seemed a dream. Tom was in the carriage, as 
Crow knew he would be, keeping guard. His 
mother had said to him, “ It is for the best. 
Crow. Oh, Crow, it would so have pleased 
your father to see you a business man out in 
the world ! ” 

At the station, as they heard the distant 
whistle of the express, Tom took him aside. 
“Now you keep mum to every living human 
being ! ” he whispered, “ and you are safe and I 
am safe. So long’s I feel safe your mother’s 
safe ! But let one whisper, one., reach my father 
against me, and he’s sure to turn her out, and 
to send you where you will circulate no 
stories ! ” 

And then the train was on them with its 
lightning and thunder, and Crow had broken 
away from Tom and stood with his arms around 
his mother like a protector ; and Tom’s father. 


TFIE TEN- O' CLOCK EXPRESS. 


67 


drawn to him with a great respect as he met 
the manly look of the child, laid his hand on his 
shoulder and said to him, “ You are going to be a 
successful man, my boy I and you and your 
mother’ll be in a home of your own — be true. 
Crow, and I’ll see that you are ! ” 

“ I am true ! I am true ! I am true, Mr. 
Glenn ! ” rang out little Crow’s piping voice, and 
then he was away from his mother. Tom’s father 
had taken him into the lighted coach and was 
gone. The train was gliding on, the conductor 
had come to him, and the last sight of home 
scenes was of Tom leaning in the dark against 
a freight car on the next track, his head turned 
away. 

“ Oh, yes,” moaned little Crow in his heart, “it 
would be hard for Tom to have his father think 
him a thief — but I was never going to tell! ” 


68 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLEBS. 


XI. 

LIFE m THE CAVE. 

To Duke and Sammy it was a great wonder 
that Crow had gone without saying good-by! 
To everybody it was a wonder, too, about Crow’s 
desirable position — so much pay, and such 
“ gentlemanly work,” and “ board ” in the family 
of the head partner; though all agreed that 
Crow was a “ little gentleman,” if ever there 
was one ; also that he would earn his pay 
if any boy of ten could. For several days 
after he had gone everybody was speaking of 
little Crow Christopher, of his energy and 
trustiness, his thoroughness and manliness — it 
seemed that there wasn’t a man in town more 
respected than this little boy of ten. 

Tom Glenn was everywhere about, anxious 
to hear all that was said, and appearing so 
pleased when Crow was praised — poor Tom 
who sinned with one hand and strove to make 
restitution with the other. Everybody knew 
that it was Mr. Glenn who had secured the 
place for little Crow, and that it was Mrs. Glenn’s 
brother who was the head of the business ; 
but nobody knew that half of Crow’s pay was 
forthcoming from Mr. Glenn ! 


LIFE IN THE CAVE. 


69 


Letters came from Crow soon — one for 
his mother, a duty-letter for Mr. Glenn, and to 
Duke and Sammy there was a joint letter; but 
all were rather stiff, even the one to his mother. 
But the senior partner’s quiet, quaint little 
message-boy wrote dozens of other letters — 
homesick, tear-stained, long ones ; these he 
never mailed. His mother sent him a letter of 
pages and pages every few days, and these 
were the bread of life on which little Crow was 
kept alive. Duke and Sammy wrote two or 
three times during the summer; theirs were 
about the cave, and became much worn in a 
very short time, and looked as letters do that 
are carried in pockets. The boys wrote mostly 
about the cave, because the cave was the im- 
portant thing that summer. 

When Duke got home that night after the 
discovery, and had had his supper, and soaked 
his face and hands and wrists full of witch- 
hazel, and he and Rebecca had gone up stairs 
for the night, he went into Rebecca’s room as 
he frequently did when he wanted to talk, be- 
cause his was directly over his father’s. 

And there he told Rebecca all about the dis- 
covery. “ We’re going to have good times in 
that cave,” he said ; “ we can do almost any- 
thing in such a place — but just what we’ll do 
first I don’t know.” 

“Well, I know,” said Rebecca, “what I 
would advise you to do; you and Sammy 
want to tell your fathers and mothers about it. 


70 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


We aren’t going to have you off in a place we 
none of us know anything about, except that 
it’s up somewhere on Middle Sable, and you start 
from a spring and almost at once are lost in a 
wilderness of maple saplings, and at some tree or 
other strike off to the right into another wil- 
derness of hemlocks and holes, where you walk 
with a prodding-pole ; and somewhere or other 
there is a fine cave, and you are all right if you 
find it — but if you don’t — why, you don’t I 
I judge it’s ten to one if ever you set eyes 
on it again ! ” 

This was the longest speech Duke ever had 
known Rebecca to make. 

“ Oh I of course we have a landmark,” he said. 
“ It was there all the time, only we had to dis- 
cover the cave before we could see that it was 
a landmark. When we had done that — there 
was the landmark all right, fast enough I I’ll 
tell you where ’tis now, so you’ll know, if ever 
we get lost, and you have to come for us. 
When you get to the tree, the one you get to 
from the spring — the cupboard-tree that I told 
you about — there’s the landmark plain to be 
seen — a great, bristling, shaggy brown bunch 
of something that sticks up off to the right. 
When you get to it, it’s a pile of dead hemlock- 
trees, tipped over by some tornado maybe, and 
you climb about among a lot of big rocks, till 
you go in behind the roots — and there’s the 
cave ! ” 

“ Well,” said Rebecca, “if you want mother 


LIFE IN THE CAVE. 


71 


and me willing to have you go up there and 
play you are dwelling in a cave, you and 
Sammy are going to take father and Mr. 
Updyke along the very next time you go, so 
that they can know all about it.” 

Duke and Sammy talked it over the next 
day — Crow was off on his weeding jobs. They 
agreed that Rebecca was right. So the first 
convenient day Mr. Black and Mr. Updyke 
put on their hats, shouldered their axes, and 
went up Middle Sable, blazing the saplings 
up along into the hemlocks, and then cut away 
and tossed aside the stuff, brown and green, dead 
and live alike, all the way to the cupboard-tree. 
Some of the shag the boys put back. Duke 
said it would be no fun at all to go up a broad 
open daylight path — what they wanted was a 
secret Indian trail. 

Mr. Black and Mr. Updyke admitted they 
saw the landmark “all right” from the cup- 
board-tree. 

“Well, then, isn’t that enough?” asked 
Duke ; “ you can see by it where the cave is ! ” 

No ; the fathers said it wasn’t enough. 
There must be a good walkable road to the 
cave. 

Hemlock is ugly tree-stuff to deal with. 
The boys objected, besides, to any sort of cut- 
ting and clearing that would reveal “ a road to 
some place ” to a chance climber. The work 
really had to be done according to their direc- 
tions. It was late in the afternoon, following 


72 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


the prodding-poles, and avoiding a hole here and 
a rock there, before the fathers had the high- 
way laid out. 

They reached the cave just at sunset. “ Too 
late to climb such ledges as these and go down 
in,” Mr. Updyke said. 

Sammy and Duke were bitterly disappointed. 
They wanted to show off the height and the 
Avidth of it, the fireplace and the “ sitting- 
stones.” 

“No, boys,” said Mr. Updyke. “We know 
where to find you now, and that’s what we 
came for.” And back the fathers strode and 
stumbled down the hill. 

Henceforth Crow’s cave was a “habitation 
and a name ” — a dwelling where fires were 
built and meals cooked, and where the two 
great Pigwacket chiefs, Paugus and Wahwa, 
planned many a scout, many a feast. 

By degrees every trace of what Paugus called 
“ pale-face civilization ” disappeared from the 
fife in the cave. True Indian habits and domestic 
implements appeared — so far as they could be 
studied and contrived from “ library -books ; ” 
notably, clam-shells took the place of knives and 
spoons, and sharp spears of wood made forks 
unnecessary. A lamp, bent up into shape from a 
flat piece of tin, that would “ hold ” tallow and 
a rag-wick and hang on a nail thrust in a 
crevice of rock, was a proud triumph. Such 
inconveniences as smoke, half-burned meat torn 
into strips by force of fingers and the jack-knife. 


LIFE IN THE CAVE. 


73 


and ashes on the roasted apples, were simply 
“ wigwam-y.” 

A worn old buffalo robe was brought up and 
cut in pieces ; the large section covered a huge 
bunk of hemlock needles and twigs, while 
smaller pieces were spread over the “sitting- 
stones.’’ They were rather obliged to resort to 
the old robe for furs, as neither of the Pig- 
wackets had a taste for hunting, never had shot 
a squirrel in their lives, nor even longed to own 
a gun. 

They made it a rule to throw down a good 
armful of broken hemlock branches at every 
visit, and as the fires burned very well the 
cave really had quite a comfortable Indian 
appearance. The lamp gave a fair light, and 
they often read aloud with genuine enjoyment 
the big buckskin-bound volume of “ Hiawatha ” 
which Mrs. Updyke had presented to Sammy on 
his birthday. 

It was in reading Longfellow’s great North 
American Indian story that the idea sprang up 
of making an Indian feast for the Pale Faces. 
They spoke of it as the “ Feast of Mondamin.” 

“ It will be about the same, I s’pose, as Harvest 
Feast at the Grange,” said Sammy. 

“ Not much it won’t ! ” said Duke. 


74 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


XIL 

PIGWACKET TALK. 

While the two Pigwackets were still known 
among the whites as Duke and Sammy, in their 
cave life they were strictly Paugus and W ahwa, 
the two chiefs in the fight at Love well’s Pond. 

This was not different from the manner of 
boys ever since the beginning of time, but they 
got as much fun out of the fiction as though 
they were the first to try it. Two other boys in 
another part of the town addressed each other 
as “ Athos ” and “ D’Artagnan.” Of this pair 
of immortals, Duke and Sammy were ignorant ; 
but they would have felt that even to be two of 
Dumas’ famous Musketeers were small glory 
when you could be instead two of the great 
old Indians of your own State I 

The boys were at the cave twice or thrice a 
week during July and August. This seemed 
seldom; they would have gone oftener had 
Crow remained at home to carry out his engage- 
ments. In consequence of Crow’s absence, all 
“ going after the cows,” a good deal of weeding, 
much “ raking after,” and many errands, fell to 
their lot. But in the evenings of even the 
busiest days they got together and searched 


PIGWACKET TALK. 


75 


histories and magazines for chance allusions to 
the Pigwackets. Mrs. Updykehad taught them 
the enjoyment of collating facts and dates and 
localities. 

One rainy day Sammy’s mother got out a file 
of New Hampshire’s historical magazine. She 
spent some time looking the numbers through 
before she turned them over to the boys. 

“ It seems there are monuments set up to 
your great Pigwacket man,” she said. 

But the boys found nothing at all of any 
monument to Paugus. 

“ Oh,” said Mrs. Updyke, with a mischievous 
smile, “ have you been looking for a monument 
in marble or bronze ? W ouldn’t it have been 
more suitable to name a lake or a mountain in 
his memory ? ” 

This idea was fascinating. After a long 
hunt the boys found that one of the beautiful 
Winnepesaukee waters had been christened 
“ Lake Paugus,” not long before ; and that one 
of the mountains of the Sandwich Range had 
been named “ Mount Paugus.” And both were 
in easy travel distance from Love well’s Pond ! 
And behold, to Duke’s great satisfaction. Mount 
Paugus was what you might call a wild moun- 
tain, an Indian mountain, a wholly primitive 
and uncivilized mountain, inhabited by lynx and 
bear and whatever wild beast you chose to fancy 
most ! Ah, that was a monument ! 

“ What’s the news from Paugus ? ” was 
generally Mrs. Updyke’s greetiug to Duke. 


76 


THE LITTLE CAVE-BWELLEBS. 


“ Glorious news ! ” cried Duke one day. 
“ The Intervales, up at Conway, where all the 
big people love to go in the summer, used to be 
called the Pigwacket Intervales. Mr. Belknap 
says so in his History. Oh, I tell you books 
are great things ! How could folks ever have 
left off the Indian part ! I’d so much rather go 
summering to the Pigwacket Intervales than to 
the Intervale, or Conway, or North Conway 1 
When I get to be a great man, or a society 
man, or whatever sort of man it is that can give 
a name to a place, see if I don’t change it 
back I ” 

Sometimes Duke would come in with a 
greeting of the same kind : “ Any news from 
the Pigwackets?” 

Mrs. Updyke answered one day, “What 
would you say, Duke, to hear that the Pig- 
wackets helped us white folks to discover 
Mount Washington? ” 

“ How ? How did you find it out ? ” 

Mrs. Updyke laughed. “ Oh, in a library 
book ! ” She took out a book from the stand- 
drawer. It was Drake’s “ Making of New 
England.” 

“A white man,” said Mrs. Updyke, “a Mr. 
Darby Field, came up to the Pigwacket country 
to visit the crystal mountain with the wonder- 
ful carbuncle on its crown, which shone and 
glittered at midnight. He staid among the 
Pigwacket Indians — they lived only twelve 
miles away — and learned all he could about 


PIGWACKET TALK. 


77 


the mountain. He found they believed it, in its 
snowy splendor, to be the abode of the gods, and 
regarded it with the greatest awe. They liked 
to talk about the mountain, but they would 
only go part way up — their reverence was too 
great ! It was the Pigwackets’ great mountain 
long before it was ours, Duke. This was in 
sixteen hundred thirty-two, and I can promise 
that you will find many allusions to this visit of 
Darby Field, in your reading.” 

“ Wasn’t it beautiful? ” Duke breathed out. 
“ When I go, it will be to visit the religious 
mountain of my Pigwackets, not the fashionable 
mountain of the white folks ! ” 

“ It truly was the Indians’ ‘ religious moun- 
tain,’ ” said Mr. Updyke. “ They believed 
that old Passaconaway, as you call him, was 
once carried up from its summit in a chariot of 
fire to attend an Indian Council in heaven.” 

“ Oh, where did you read that ? ” cried Duke. 
“ In a hbrary-book,” said Mrs. Updyke, with 
a smile. “ In Starr King’s ‘ White Hills ’ — 
you boys better read that book ! ” 


78 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLEBS. 


XIIL 

MYSTERIES. 

As soon as the two Pigwackets had deter- 
mined to have the “ Feast of Mondamin,” they 
set to work. Sometimes they went up Middle 
Sable two or three days in succession. 

Rebecca had a little box of shells, tiny sea 
shells. Some of them she had picked up her- 
self on a visit to Nantasket beach, but most of 
them had been sent to her from the island of 
Nantucket. Duke coaxed her to sell him these, 
and also prevailed on his father, who was going 
down to Boston, to bring him a few clam-shells. 

“ Clam-shells ! What do you want of clam- 
shells?” demanded his father. 

“ Well, you know, father, that I can’t do any 
mischief with clam-shells,” said poor Duke. 

“ But what do you want of them ? ” persisted 
Mr. Black. 

“ Father, did you want to tell everything you 
planned to do, when you were a boy?” asked 
Duke. 

Mrs. Black laid her hand on her husband’s 
arm as she passed. Nothing more was said 
about the clam-shells; but Mr. Black brought 


MYSTERIES. 


79 


some, and Marmaduke went off with them to 
get Sammy. For several days after, strange 
sounds of chipping and pounding could have 
been heard issuing from the bowels of the earth, 
had any one been, passing a certain point on 
Middle Sable. The same person strolling along 
the base of the hill might have noticed that large 
sections of bark had been cut from two or three 
of the big birch-trees. These pieces of bark, 
too, had been taken up to the cave, together 
with some black paint and a couple of Rebecca’s 
brushes. 

And shortly after, Duke and Sammy began 
to gather up old leather ; and one morning they 
begged for some needles and stout black thread, 
and also borrowed the “ old shears.” 

In fact, so many mysterious articles were 
called for that Rebecca went into his room one 
night, and asked Marmaduke what they were 
wanted for. 

“ See here,” said Duke, “ I don’t ask what 
^ou want things for ! ” 

He wouldn’t tell her ; and Rebecca said that 
if it was for -something all right he would tell. 

“ S’pose I should ask Christmas-time what 
you were going to give me for a Christmas- 
present, would you tell ? And if you didn’t, 
would I say if you were all right you would 
tell?” 

Rebecca laughed. “Well, I’ll put it in an- 
other way. Is it something that wouldn’t mal^e 
mother feel bad ? ” 


80 


TRE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLEBS. 


Marmaduke always flashed if there was an 
insinuation that he wasn’t treating his mother 
well. “1 guess ’twouldn’t make her feel bad 
when I’m doing it on purpose for her — and 
you, too, and Mrs. Updyke and father and 
Sammy’s father! There I You make me tell 
any more, and I’ll give the whole thing up I 
It’s mean to badger a fellow so, as if he’d do 
some horrid thing or other if he got a chance I ” 
“ Marmaduke,” said Rebecca humbly, after a 
moment, “ I never knew you to do a mean 
thing in your life — you, nor Sammy either,” 
and then she went out. 

Duke and Sammy were doing nothing wrong, 
and went on adding to their mysteries. They 
tugged an iron kettle up Middle Sable, and an 
old iron dripping-pan, and some other iron 
things, among them a mortar and pestle. 

“ These are things we can’t make,” said 
Wahwa. “We couldn’t in ten years.” 

“ You bet,” said Paugus, “ when I go up to 
the old Pigwacket plains on the Saco, I’ll dig 
up some things that are really Indian I ” 

The two Pigwackets laid in a supply of wood, 
and they experimented a good deal over the 
coals and in the ashes, and thought the results 
pretty fair. They often chopped among the 
saplings an hour at a time, and filled in bad 
holes on the hemlock highway, and cleared 
away some of the rubbish about the cave. 

At last the time came when they must take 
their fathers into the secret. They concluded 


MYSTERIES. 


81 


Sammy better tell his first. “ Father is so 
quick and up and down,” said Duke ; “ and he 
doesn’t like to say yes if he’s ever said no. 
Yours is slow, and waits to think, and leaves 
a chance to say yes if he should want to.” 

Mr. Updyke said neither yes nor no, but 
didn’t object to Mr. Black’s being asked over. 
Mr. Black seemed to think it very odd that 
Marmaduke should want him to go over to see 
Mr. Updyke, and gave him a searching look — 
“ as if,” felt Duke, “ I had got into some trou- 
ble ! I wonder why my folks always seem to 
expect that I’ve got into trouble ? ” 

“ Now, father, don’t speak till I get through,” 
said Marmaduke, when Mr. Black had got com- 
fortably seated on the chopping-block in the 
wood-yard ; and then he laid open the scheme, 
during which the two fathers seemed to find 
several occasions to exchange smiles. 

After he got through, Duke said no more, 
not a word. Sammy said nothing. 

“Well, boys,” said Mr. Black, “we’ll help 
you through. Mind though, you make it a 
feast worth while ! What’ll their mothers say,” 
he added, as the boys galloped off like a pair 
of colts. Then both men threw back their 
heads and laughed. 

“ Picture ’em going in I ” said Sammy’s 
father. 


82 


TRE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


XIV. 

THE FEAST OF MONDAMIN. 

One evening Mrs. Updyke, Mrs. Black, Re- 
becca and Mrs. Christopher were notified that 
there was to be a neighborhood picnic the next 
day. None of them learned where it was to be 
held. “ It’s a new kind,” Mr. Black said ; 
“a ‘ FoUow-my-leader ’ picnic, if you want a 
name. And for once in your lives you haven’t 
to bake and pack and lug along your refresh- 
ments. You simply want to be ready at ten 
o’clock in calico gowns and easy old shoes, and 
tie on a snug hat, and put a fan in your pocket, 
and a handkerchief or two. That’s all. You 
needn’t ask questions, for that’s all ! ” 

“ Do the boys know ? Aren’t the boys 
going?” Mrs. Updyke asked. 

“ They’ll be somewhere around,” said Mr. 
Black. 

The boys were found to know all about it, 
and to have suggested that Crow’s mother be 
asked. 

But they were not “ around ” when the com- 
pany set out, with Mr. Black as the leader. 
Everybody seemed to go along naturally to 


THE FEAST OF MONDAMIN. 


83 


the corner and turn in by the spring in the 
moss ; and they had even entered upon the 
trail in the saplings before they mistrusted 
whither they were bound; but at that point 
they guessed it. 

“ Why,” said Mrs. Updyke, stopping to laugh, 
“ we are going up to the boys’ cave I ” 

“ Of course,” laughed Rebecca ; “ and it’s 
the boys that are giving us the picnic I ” 

And then Mrs. Christopher looked sorrowful ; 
for if Crow had been home he would have been 
there with Sammy and Marmaduke. 

They went single-file, with some difficulty to 
be sure, but also with a good deal of laughter. 

When some distance up, they were stopped. 
At one side of the trail, among the saplings, 
stood a row of the funniest, prettiest green 
booths imaginable, six of them. Each was 
formed of two saplings, with branches and 
leaves, bent over and lapped, then bound to- 
gether with rope. In each stood a stout rustic 
camp-stool, made of limbs crossed and tied fast, 
the seat of rope. 

At either end of this sylvan arcade stood a 
slender figure — two young Indian boys. They 
were of a beautiful copper color. They wore 
little helmet-like caps of red squirrel fur, and at 
the peak, from which rose a crow-quill, was 
an ornament of shell-work ; below the cap, in 
one case, streamed coal-black locks, but the 
other young brave plainly had red hair, as two 
or three wisps of it were to be seen. This one 


84 


THE LITTLE CAVE-LWELLERS. 


had big, fiery blue orbs, but the one with black 
hair had black eyes. 

The red flannel shirts of the Indians had a 
very familiar look ; but the short trousers were 
trimmed at the side with a fringe of corn-husk, 
and worn with broad war-belts of ancient 
leather wrought thick with wampum — rough 
shell-work in which were set finer patterns of 
small ocean shells ; they were also trimmed at 
the bottom, with fringe made of shells and 
strips of soft leather. Each wore in his wam- 
pum belt a knife resembling a jack-knife, and 
on his shoulder carried a tomahawk much like 
a wood-hatchet. 

The two gorgeous young braves came forward. 
“ Will the Pale Faces taste the hospitality of 
Paugus and W ahwa, the Pigwackets ? ” in- 
quired he of the red locks and fiery eyes, point- 
ing to the booths. “ Enter, and rest and eat ! ” 

Seated in the shady green arches, each Pale 
Face received a birch-bark basket of popped 
corn, and little square trays of bark were dis- 
tributed holding shelled meats of butternut, 
walnut, hazelnut and beechnut. Stone bottles 
of spring water were passed. No better life-sus- 
taining road-lunch could have been served. It 
was eaten in silence, as the Pale Faces were 
unused to conversation mth the Red Men of the 
Forest. To be sure, one of the braves, he of 
the fiery eyes, gave Mrs. Black’s hand a silent 
squeeze once as he passed her, and Mrs. Black 
courteously squeezed back. 


THE FEAST OF MON D AMIN. 


85 


The young Indians soon led the way on to 
reach a distant lodge of the Pigwackets. 
About noon they came to a wide-spreading 
tree, where they halted. From a cupboard in 
the interior of the trunk, refreshments were 
taken, though it appeared from some words 
exchanged between the braves that two pack- 
ages containing crackers and chipped beef had 
been mysteriously removed. However, the 
Pale Faces were plentifully served with prunes 
and raisins, supposed to be the dried fruit of 
native plum-trees and grape-vines. Stone 
bottles of cold acid water, taken from a small 
cellar in the ground, were passed. 

The march was again resumed. The trail 
led now among scraggy hemlock and low rocks. 
It wound on a long distance, and ended in the 
midst of a disorderly pile of very large rocks, 
but among w’hich with ease tripped the light 
feet of the Indians, assisting the guests. Be- 
hind some huge, dead, upturned hemlocks, upon 
an oblong ledge sufficiently large to give stand- 
ing-room for all, there was a halt — and the 
black-haired Indian whirled about and pro- 
ceeded to slip down a chasm between the 
ledge and another rock vast and overhanging. 

As if according to instructions, or a signal, 
Mr. Black turned about also, got down on his 
hands and knees, and followed. 

“All safe for the Woman Pale Face,” said 
the red-locked brave at Mrs. Black’s side. 

The Woman Pale Face shrank back. 


86 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


“ Oh, come along,” cried up Mr. Black, down 
below. I’m planted here on a first-rate stone, 
and I’ll keep hold of you and guide you.” 

But the Woman Pale Face shook her head. 
“ I can’t,” she said. 

“ Come on, Mrs. Updyke ! you aren’t afraid ! ” 
called Mr. Black. 

“ Of course she isn’t ! ” said Mr. Updyke. 
“ Go right down, Helen.” 

With a laugh, gathering her skirts close 
about her, Mrs. Updyke knelt down, and Mr. 
Updyke steadied her, and she disappeared ; and 
then she seemed to be swung off somewhere 
farther down, and a gruff Indian voice inquired 
“ All right, mother ? ” 

Little Mrs. Christopher followed, without a 
word, and then Rebecca. Mrs. Black, standing 
outside, could hear them both, somewhere, 
laughing. Then the blue-eyed Indian by her 
side, talking in a voice as guttural as possible, 
put his arm around her and led her along. The 
sounds of merry laughter below helped assure 
her; and with Mr. Updyke and the young 
brave above to assist her, and Mr. Black below, 
she yielded, and was let down the dim descent. 
Half stooping she was hurried along, and soon 
came out with the others, into an open place 
— such a weird, enchanting place ! 

“ Welcome, Pale Faces ! welcome ! welcome ! 
welcome to the lodge of Wahwa and Paugus ! ” 
exclaimed the Indians in perfect concert. 

They pointed the Pale Face women to the 


THE FEAST OF MONDAMIN. 


87 


seat of honor, the couch of fur. The men 
stood gazing about in astonishment at the 
Indian character of the cave. The Pigwacket 
chiefs remained silent, as if to observe the im- 
pression made by their lodge. 

The fire was the great feature, the domestic 
feature, the home feature, the feast feature, 
the feature of hospitality. It burned on a 
broad hearth of rock, and filled the lodge with 
savory odors of roasting corn and potatoes. 
On its coals stood an iron kettle, in which corn 
and beans were bubbling into a delicious Indian 
succotash. 

Near-by, on a stone laid with green leaves, 
rose a golden pyramid of harvest apples, sur- 
rounded by bark baskets of shining blackberries. 
A row of brown bowls was ranged near, be- 
tween piles of birch-bark trays, with wooden 
spoons and forks, plainly the products of jack- 
knives. 

Above hung the tin lamp, its rag-wicks 
blazing. “ Taken from some settler’s cabin 
without doubt ! Ugh ! ” whispered Mrs. Up- 
dyke to Mrs. Black. 

On the walls, hanging by rough twigs stuck 
in cracks of the rocks, were several sheets of 
birch-bark on which were rudely pictured forth 
Indian battles, feasts, and hunts, journeys, and 
horrible dances. Fishing-spears hewed from 
wood, and branches of acorns and cones, hung 
among the pictures, with bunches of wild quills 
of all kinds. 


88 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


Mrs. Updyke could wait no longer. “ Boys ! ” 
she called. “ Paugus Duke and Sammy Wahwa ! 
We are proud of you I Come now and let’s 
enjoy it ! ” She had already whispered to Mrs. 
Black several times that she was proud of the 
boys. 

The two young Pigwackets still stood 
stately. “ When the Pale Faces have feasted 
then will the tongues of the Red Men of the 
Woods be unloosed,” said the blue-eyed brave. 

Then, with wooden paddles and spears and 
their belt-knives, a pile of new corn in the 
husk and new potatoes in the skin was lifted 
from the roasting ashes, and served to the 
guests on bark trays. Dried salmon and hali- 
but were passed. Then came little brown bowls 
of succotash, with good silver spoons, though 
the chieftains themselves ate from clam-shells ! 
Immense basswood leaves served as napkins. 
Next were brought tiny birch boxes containing 
pounded parched corn mixed with finely scraped 
maple sugar, and these were followed by black- 
berries and apples. Last were passed stone 
bottles of spring-water, chilled in the heart of 
the earth. 

Such was the feast of the copper-colored 
cave-dwellers to the Pale Faces. 

In great gravity followed the smoking of 
the peace-pipe. This was a large clay pipe, clean 
and new, filled with sweet-fern, and lighted at 
a live coal from the hearth. It was passed 
from hand to hand, and each solemnly drew a 

LofC. 


THE FEAST OF MONDAM IN. 


89 


whiff, though Mrs. Updyke had trouble in re- 
straining the scream of mirth that rose to her 
lips ; and scream at last she did, half strangled 
with fun and a swallow of smoke. The others 
joined in, and the two Indians broke into a scalp- 
dance,when suddenly there came into the fun a 
keen cry — a cry that seemed a succession of 
sobs. 

All rose in haste, listening. It seemed to 
come from somewhere in the entrance passage. 

“ Is it a panther — is a wild animal in the 
cave ? ” asked Mrs. Black, trembling. 

Mrs. Christopher had rushed past her. She 
knew that cry ! From the passage a small fig- 
ure came suddenly into sight — a little lad, wild- 
eyed, hatless, his coat torn — a poor little image 
of Crow Christopher. 

It was Crow Christopher ; and as if he could 
not stay among them a moment without confess- 
ing, from his mother’s arms he turned to face 
them — and, oh, how thrilling the high, piping 
voice was, moaning out to his old friends ! 

“ I couldn^t stay I I have run away ! I 
couldn’t stay, mother I I have run away ! I came 
off the train at Dixville, and came across. I 
couldn’t go to our house, mother. I came to the 
cave, and took things to eat from the boys’ cup- 
board-tree, and I came in and staid all night, 
after the boys had gone home. And I saw you 
all come to-day. And I saw you, mother, and 
I could not stand it. I saw you all, and I knew 
that you wouldn’t believe it I ” 


90 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLEB8. 


And then little trembling Crow leaned back 
against his mother. 

“ Believe what, Crow ? ” asked Mrs. Christo- 
pher, trembling like her boy. 

“ Crow, believe what ? ” asked Mr. Black. 

“We don’t believe anything, Crow ! ” shouted 
Duke ; “ what is it ? ” 

“ Yes, Crow, what is it? ” said Mrs. Updyke. 
“ Good heavens, what is it, I’d like to know ! ” 
she said to Mrs. Black, who was down on her 
knees holding the scratched, shaking hands. 

“ He is out of his head. He must be got 
home,” said Mrs. Christopher. 

Crow tried to stand up. “ Let’s go,” he 
chattered, shaking as if with cold. “ Mother, 
we can go somewhere and work, and be together. 
I don’t believe Mr. Glenn would shut me up so 
we’d be away from each other forever ! ” 

The guests of the Pigwackets looked at 
one another, bewildered. Mr. Black passed his 
hand across his eyes, frowning. “ See here ! ” 
said he, “ let’s get the child out of this I Then 
Updyke and I will look into it. Crow?” 

But Crow, leaning against his mother, was 
asleep 1 

Mr. Black took him gently up in his arms, 
and the feast was at an end, the guests making 
their way forth, scrambling, and lifted and 
helped one by another, and going down Middle 
Sable, wondering about poor little Crow, and 
not knowing how to comfort Mrs. Christopher. 


THE FEAST OF MONDAMIN, 


91 


XV. 

TOM AND GRAN’DAD. 

The next morning early, Mr. Black and Mr. 
Updyke were at Mrs. Christopher’s. Little 
Crow was asleep, and they didn’t see him. But 
he had told his mother something more of his 
trouble, and this little she told her neighbors. 

“ He thinks,” she said, “ that Mr. Glenn 
thinks he’s a bad boy, and sent him away lest he 
should rob farmhouses where he worked. He 
says Mr. Glenn thinks he got into old Mr. 
Glenn’s room and tried to rob him — oh, I 
don’t understand it ! It seems such an unreason- 
able thing — that our home would be taken 
from us if my poor little boy didn’t leave town ! 
Mr. Glenn has been very good to us always. 
I fear Crow has gone out of his poor little 
head!” 

Mrs. Christopher was breaking down. 

“ Come, Updyke,” said Mr. Black, “ we’ll go 
up to Glenn’s and get to the bottom of this 
thing. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Christopher ; 
we know that little Crow has done nothing 
wrong. We’ll have it all cleared up before 
night ! ” 


92 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


Mr. Black and Mr. Updyke went up to the 
Glenn farm. Mr. Glenn was at home, in the 
house, in the sitting-room. His father sat 
there too, with his paper. Tom was lying on 
the lounge, reading. 

Mr. Black spoke out, with no delay. “ Glenn, 
little Crow Christopher came home last night. 
He ran away, to get home to his mother. He’s 
very ill — I don’t know but he has brain- 
fever.” 

Tom had got to his feet. “ Probably he has, 
if he’s run away from my uncle ! ” he said. 
Then he seemed to change his mind, and sat 
down. 

Mr. Glenn looked at Mr. Black in astonish- 
ment. “ Crow has come home ! Has run away I ” 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Black ; “ and he seems to 
be in trouble about you, Glenn. We all know 
you’ve been very kind to him, and got him his 
place. But poor little Crow says you think 
he’s a bad boy, and that you sent him out of 
town because you believed he got into your 
father’s room and tried to steal ” — 

Tom, Mr. Glenn, old Mr. Glenn, rose from 
their seats at the same moment. 

“ Well,” Mr. Glenn said, “I’m sorry to say ” — 

“It’s all true, Mr. Black,” Tom began. 

“ Richard ” — then Tom’s grandfather paused, 
and seemed to paralyze him with a glance from 
under his shaggy eyebrows. Tom sat down 
once more. “ Richard,” said old Mr. Glenn to 
his son, “is this true? Did you send little 


TOM AND gran: DAD. 


93 


Crow Christopher off to Daniel because you 
believed he tried to enter niy room and rob 
me ? How did you get your information ? ” 

“ Why, Tom told me, father. We didn’t 
mean you ever to know. Tom and Bert Jones 
caught him with your bill-book in his hand, and 
noiselessly got him out, and put him on his 
good behavior until they could talk with me. 
They were sorry for him, and begged for him, 
and planned his going to Cleveland, lest he 
attempt to rob you again, and frighten you out 
of the peace of your home.” 

Gran’dad had grown ghastly white, but he 
kept on his feet. He turned on his grandson 
with a look still more terrible to bear, for in it 
was the reproach of a loving heart. Tom could 
not bear it. He got up on his feet once more. 

“ Gran’dad,” he said, “ Gran’dad, Gran’dad — ” 

“ Sit down, Tom,” said his grandfather. “ I 
will confess it for you ; for I was not asleep. 
I saw you. It just broke my heart ! and I 
could not expose you. I could understand a 
sudden temptation; and when I found the 
bills back in place the next day, I felt sure 
you had repented. But little Crow Christo- 
pher ! It would seem the little fellow saw you 
by some chance, and lest he speak of it — oh, 
Tom, my boy, that you should be, after all, so 
hardened a young fellow I To wrong poor little 
Crow Christopher!” The scanty tears of old 
age stood in Gran’dad's eyes. He eased him- 
self down into his chair slowly. 


94 


THE LITTLE CAfE-DWELLEBS. 


Mr. Glenn’s neighbors felt S3raipathy for him, 
and turned away in silence. Mr. Glenn, how- 
ever, followed them to the door. 

“ This shall be set right,” he said. 

“We know that, Glenn,” said Mr. Updyke. 

Mr. Glenn took his hat and turned to his son. 
“Come, Tom ! ” 

“ Yes, father,” said Tom. 

“You may send me up Squire Halliday, 
Richard,” said Gran’dad. 

“ Yes, father.” 

Mr. Glenn and Tom said not a word to each 
other on the way down to the little Christopher 
house. Both felt sure Tom had lost the big 
Glenn property. 

“ It serves me right,” said Tom to himself. 

“ It serves us right,” said the father in his 
wretched heart. 

What was said in the Christopher sitting- 
room never became fully known to either the 
Blacks or the Updykes. Neither Tom nor his 
father saw Crow — little Crow was too ill. 

His mother went in, and told him that Mr. 
Glenn knew now, and Gran’dad, and Mr. Up- 
dyke, and Mr. Black, that he had not been in 
Gran’dad’ s room, and that Gran’dad had seen 
Tom and Bert at the desk. 

“ What shall I tell Mr. Glenn and Tom for 
you, my child ? ” 

“ Oh,” said poor little Crow, “ tell Tom I’ll 
never tell I And now Tom’ll be good again. I 
used to love Tom — tell him I did, mother.” 


TOM AND GRANDDAD. 


95 


Poor little Crow I he was too tired and ill to 
think much about anything. He forgot all 
about Tom in a few minutes. He was ill for a 
long time, nearly all summer. 

When Tom and his father went out to go 
home, Tom spoke. “Father, I would like to 
go away. I would like to go away and take 
some place to learn to do business, or else learn 
a trade. I can’t stay here. I don’t want to 
mix with a lot of young fellows at school either. 
I want to be alone ! ” 

“ Tom,” said his father, “ stay right here at 
home. When it is time to go to school, go to 
school. Let Mr. Black and Mr. Updyke see 
you live down all the bad, all the evil, that was 
in you ! ” 

So said Gran’dad Glenn ; so said the best im- 
pulse in Tom’s own heart. 

By and by, many things had happened. Little 
Crow had got well. Mrs. Christopher had a 
clear deed of her home with no mortgage at- 
tached; and later Crow was away at school. 
But not until after he had become happy and 
familiar with all his old friends once more, and 
had spent many merry hours in the cave with 
Marmaduke and Sammy ; not until after he had 
lived down every pitiful memory. And then, 
after other years still had gone by, half of old 
Gran’dad Glenn’s wealth was his. Tom was the 
one to take him to the house to hear the will 
read. Tom was just home from college when 
Gran’dad died. He was a big, grave sort of 


96 


THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS. 


fellow, with purposes to carry out ; but the great 
feeling in all his after-life was his friendship 
for little Crow. And after more years had gone, 
Crow was just entering college with Marmaduke 
and Sammy. He had caught up with the boys, 
and was entering the same year. 

When they are in Duke’s room and making 
plans, one is to spend a vacation among the 
ancient seats of the Pigwackets and the old 
haunts of Paugus, by the Saco, in the great 
Coos country. “ And perhaps,” says Duke, “ I’ll 
take it in hand, while I’m about such things, to 
learn whether I really am a relative of the 
Chamberlain who fought the old chief ! ” 

They make the fine plans that generous young 
fellows love to make ; such as that of devoting 
years of their lives to travel and work in their 
native land to restore to the rivers and lakes 
and mountains and localities the Indian names 
they anciently bore. And another is the found- 
ing for their college of a professorship for the 
study of Early Indian North America — “the 
Mrs. Updyke Professorship,” says Duke, and 
Sammy smiles the smile of the cave days. 

“I’ll pay the salaries. I’ll endow it!” cries 
little Crow; and little Crow has wealth suf- 
ficient. 



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